Manzoor Ahmed, Marxist MP in Pakistan, speaking to the comrades of the International Marxist Tendency (IMT)

At a recent gathering of the International Committee of the IMT in January, Manzoor Ahmed spoke about his experience in visiting the areas hit by the earthquake and also outlined how the comrades of The Struggle are working to build up a powerful Marxist tendency within the Pakistani labour and youth movement.

Comrades, the earthquake in Kashmir and the Northern areas of Pakistan is, I think, the biggest tragedy in the history of Pakistan. One particular tragedy highlights the whole situation. There was a college building which collapsed and in the library of that building there were eleven female students who were trapped inside. They were alive for four days. They were talking, they were shouting. They were calling out their names and requesting help. And people came. So many people were speaking with them but no one was able to help them. These girls were crying. They called for their brothers, their fathers, their relatives. But, after four days, there was no more noise. All the girls had died. Think for a moment about the death of these girls. Maybe one of them had died first while the others watched. And maybe, eventually ten were dead and only one remained and she had to watch the whole scene. I visited that place – the district of Bhag – and I explained this incident in the parliament. There were many people present when I was in Bhag and one of them stood up and asked me if I had talked to these girls.

Comrades, what happened in Bhag is the story of every city, every village, every home and every family in Pakistan. Even six of our own comrades have died there. Through all of this, you can see the crisis of the state. It was only after five days that the state responded to these areas. In the district of Bhag there were only four bulldozers in the whole area. The army owned three and all three were out of order and the last one was stuck after the landslide even though the army receives the biggest share of the defence expenditure of Pakistan.

The infrastructure of the army has been exposed. Only 16 of their helicopters were functioning. So, a lot of people, more than 100,000 have died and more than 100,000 people have been injured. For weeks, there was no food and no shelter and no medicine for the people of these areas. In the early stages, there seemed to be no state in Pakistan at all. There were only the people who responded earlier than the state in these areas – young people, students, medical students – they intervened immediately after the earthquake.

After the earthquake, the biggest question facing us, facing our organisation was how to respond. We had no first-hand information because there was no telephone, no connections, no electricity and there was no transportation. There was no communication with these areas at all so we were very worried about our comrades. No one knew what had happened there. After three days we sent two comrades there and after travelling miles and miles of hilly area by foot, after two or three days we heard back from them. They said, “We have met up with a few comrades here and a few there. They are alive. But, a lot of comrades are still missing.”

We were thus able to start some relief work. Even in the early stages, we had contradictory information about the relief work. We did not have clear information about the charity camps, which had been established. So, after one week we decided to establish our own camps in those cities where we have a base of our organisation. There was a very good response from the comrades and the public, from the trade unions and the students.

Then, we started the caravans – the relief-goods caravans sent to Kashmir. We set up five camps in the bigger cities of Kashmir like Muzzafarabad, Bhag, Rawalkot and other cities. We sent some comrades who are student doctors and paramedics to those areas. And we sent medicines. Then we started the relief caravans with relief goods. We sent 29 trucks loaded with goods. I think the cost of every truck was 200,000 rupees [about 3,000 Euros – Ed.].

In Muzzafarabad, the mood was so depressed. But after a few days, after the first visit by comrade Lal Khan, we held an aggregate and about 40-50 comrades were present. Actually, at one stage we thought of pulling out the comrades from that situation because each comrade had deaths in his own family and tragedy was in every house there. But after a few days we were able to help pull the comrades out of their grief.

Then the work started there. First, we published this leaflet and distributed it in our camps [holds up the leaflet]. In it there is a message from comrade Alan Woods that was read out in every camp, in every meeting and in every aggregate. That message, together with the response of our international comrades, helped change the mood there. The comrades felt that they were not alone – that they have the support of all the Pakistani comrades and the support of all our comrades internationally.

Then we started consecutive visits. We made so many visits to these areas. And then we published another poster [Shows poster]. There is a poem written by comrade Javed Shaheen printed on it. I think it is a very good poem and comrade Lal Khan should translate it because I think it is for the international comrades. Then, the comrades started their work organising some branches and some demonstrations in the area. But one thing is very important. After a few days, our comrades started seeing a few fundamentalists sponsored by the state. The army began taking over all the relief trucks that had been sent by the people of Pakistan and they distributed those relief goods through the camps of the fundamentalists.

I want to quote from the December editorial written by a very renowned journalist of the monthly Pakistani Herald:

“To begin with, the government is already feeling the heat from the army field commanders who are caught between a mounting chorus of dissatisfied quake victims on the one hand. Then you have the government, bent on sending out an all-is-well message to the world, on the other. It has also not helped the army to co-opt the Jamaat-u-Dawa, the militants who were used to secure areas along the Line of Control immediately after the quake instead of helping in the relief and rescue efforts. Like most Islamic militant outfits, the Jamaat-u-Dawa cadres are wary of an army led by General Musharraf who is to them an American agent. So they reportedly exploited the situation not only to further their own strategic aims in the region but also to launch a campaign at the village level to belittle the army’s relief work in the eyes of the people.”

So, this is the situation. The army, the American forces, NATO forces are helping these fundamentalist militants and what they normally describe as “terrorists”. And actually, the militants are enjoying the help. They are moving around the whole area without any hindrance. The army even took and requisitioned five of the trucks that we had sent.

So, after the relief efforts, we started the political work in Kashmir. That is the real task of our organisation. We formed the Jamu/Kashmir Revolutionary Alliance with all of the progressive youth and students organisations of Kashmir. Our comrade Adil is the organiser of that alliance and they held demonstrations in 12 different cities in one day despite the very bad weather there.

Now you can see the situation there. The government needs 10-12 billion dollars for the reconstruction of the area and 5-10 years for the work to be done. They have no money in Pakistan so they held an international donors’ conference in Islamabad. But the response from the “international community”, and especially their community, was very poor at that time. In Pakistan, General Musharraf has the advice of world and American imperialism and all the European countries. The target was 12 billion dollars but the total amount reached was 6.2 billion dollars and of this amount, 4.8 billion dollars are loans, not aid!

Considering the relief effort that is needed and the role of this parliament and the role of the other political parties, there is no way out. You can see that this earthquake exposes the real picture of the “democratic” system in Pakistan: they have appointed as relief commissioner a military General. They have sidelined the Kashmir government, bypassed the parliament and the Kashmir Affairs Ministry and the Special Kashmir Committee. They have made a mess.

After the harsh weather, you can see there is a revolt building up against the state and in protest against all the affairs that they have mishandled. And we are anticipating that revolt and the mood of the masses. We are trying to form this alliance and trying to arrange some meetings of that alliance.

Last month, when I visited India, I discussed this idea with some of the leaders of Indian-held Kashmir and with different MPs and notably, the CPI-M State Secretary of Kashmir. They agreed with the idea and they actually extended their support suggesting that we should form a Revolutionary Youth Alliance in that part of Kashmir also. This may be the first contact since partition between the two Kashmirs. So, we have played a very important and vital role within this situation.

Consider the economic conditions of Pakistan. I don’t want to go into the details because comrade Lal Khan has already explained the economic situation on Pakistan. I want to point out only one figure. Currently, after the WTO agreement, Pakistan has accumulated a deficit of 6 billion dollars in the first four months of this year. And what is their target of exports for the whole of this year? It is 14 billion dollars. So, if this trade deficit continues on an annual basis, it will be more than the total exports of Pakistan. It could be up to 18 billion dollars within this financial year.

The backbone of Pakistan's economy is still agriculture. Cotton is a very important crop in Pakistan. But this year, they are 2 million bails short of their target. Wheat shortages are resulting in wheat imports. There are conflicts between the sugar cane farmers and the sugar mill owners. Now, in the countryside, it is the sugar season but the sugar mills are closed. There is even a shortage of potatoes. The spin-off effects of the problems in the cotton industry on the economy as a whole will be disastrous because the textile industry is one of the biggest industries in Pakistan.

So, this is the state of the economy and General Musharraf is sitting on this economy and ruling the country. Growth is slowing down from 8.2% to 6% of GDP. For the first time even the micro-economic indicators are showing decline. Poverty and unemployment are increasing. There is a crisis within the state and this crisis could explode in a political way, involving the national question. The state is incapable of solving the problems of Pakistan; problems like education, health, disease and clean drinking water.

As Lenin said, in the last analysis the national question is a question of bread. There’s exploitation within the Sindh province so the Sindh national question is there; there is the Pashtoon national question in the northwest frontier of Pakistan, and the Kashmiri national question. There is even the Saraki national question in the Punjab and recently, the national question in Baluchistan has exploded.

When General Musharraf visited Baluchistan they fired rocket launchers at him. But there is evidence that they were arranged attacks because they fired many rockets but none of them hit the target. They were an excuse for the state to intervene. Immediately after, they started army operations in Baluchistan – one of the most brutal army operations in the history of Pakistan. They are bombing the area with gun-ship helicopters. They are even using long-range canons. And I think the whole of Baluchistan is now under army control.

In these conditions what are the nationalists saying? They offer no solution to the problems of the people of Baluchistan. In fact, they are also the exploiters and looters and are demanding money from the government. This is the national question of the Sardars and the landlords of that area. But the people of Baluchistan are living in very bad conditions. They are the most exploited people in Pakistan. The state has no solution. The nationalists have no solution. One nationalist Sardar made a statement in the press: “We welcome the help of any person in the world even from India, even from America, even from Satan.” They think that American imperialism will save them and that it will give them the rights of their nationality. But this is a dream.

So it is our task to try and link up the class question with the national question because it is the only viable solution for the oppressed nationalities of Pakistan. In these areas it is very difficult to build an organisation, especially based on the ideas of Marx and Lenin, but our comrades persevere and they are doing a very good job. On the one hand, they are fighting against these nationalists and on the other they are fighting against the state and state oppression. We have a very good, strong and vibrant organisation in Baluchistan and we are campaigning in all of Pakistan against military oppression.

All this is happening while the regime is trying to sell all the state-owned enterprises to their own people in a very brutal wave of privatisations. They have actually sold off the largest bank of Pakistan, The Habib Bank, to Prince Karim Margahan. They only sold it for 22 billion rupees and within two years he has already earned a profit of 24 billion rupees. I think one single building of his entire Karachi Habib Plaza is equal to the cost of that privatisation.

Then they sold the Pakistan Telecommunication Corporation, the biggest corporation in Pakistan, despite the fact there was a very militant movement against that privatisation in which we played a very important role. At one stage, the state was virtually defeated by the workers of the Pakistan Telecommunications Corporation. But due to the betrayal of the trade union leaders that success was turned into a defeat. Now, the army has actually taken over all of the installations of the Telecommunications Corporation.

Now, they intend to sell Pakistan Steel but we are campaigning hard against this privatisation. Pakistan Steel is in Karachi and it is one of the biggest steel projects in Pakistan. But actually, it is not a straightforward privatisation – it is the land grabbers, the land mafia, that are behind the privatisation. All they are interested in are the 19,000 acres of land that the steel mill is situated on and in its coastal location on the biggest sea port of Pakistan. Also, it is located near the national highway between Karachi and Lahore and on to Pindi.

We actually started the struggle against this privatisation and we held a very successful conference in 2005. More than 500 delegates attended that Karachi conference. Almost all of the trade unions from Karachi were present. The chief guest was the Pakistan senate opposition leader from the Pakistan People’s Party and I was presiding.

After that conference, I received a phone call from a security officer in charge of the steel mill – he was probably an army colonel – because we had distributed two or three open letters from me to the steel mill about how they are going to privatise and why they are going to privatise – that they are actually looting the property of the people of Pakistan. He asked me if I had distributed that leaflet, this open letter within the steel mill. I said yes. He said, “But this is very strange. You have made very bad remarks about the chairman of the steel mill.” (laughter) I asked, “What remarks do you want explained?” So he started to recite some of the text and I said to him “These aren’t very bad remarks”. Then he told me that we are going to take you to court. I said, “It’s up to you”.

So, we are actually fighting against all these privatisations and the whole process and now the PTUDC (The Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign) is a very respected body within the trade unions of Pakistan because our comrades have played a very important role within every struggle against privatisation, against bad laws and against the brutal attacks by the regime and the bosses everywhere in Pakistan. But we have one privilege in Pakistan that no other trade union enjoys and that is the support of our international comrades. The support of our comrades internationally - any messages of support to the comrades, especially from the trade unions - helps us gain confidence.

So you can see that when that security officer told me that they would complain about me to the PPP leadership. It reveals the situation of the Pakistan’s People’s Party. The government is in a severe crisis in Pakistan. Even after the Local Bodies Election in Pakistan there is conflict in the ruling alliance. They got the worst result in the history of that alliance and in the history of their government. In fact, this alliance isn’t really an alliance at all anymore. And it is the same situation with the fundamentalists who comprise an alliance of six parties. They actually put up their candidates against each other. The reality is that the fundamentalist alliance has broken down.

The story of the third alliance, the ARD (the Alliance of the Restoration of Democracy) is the same. Pakistan Peoples Party is in this alliance. In the recent Local Bodies Elections, the Pakistan People’s Party faced the worst humiliating defeat in the history of the PPP. Even Benazir Bhutto lost in her own district of Larkana where she has never been defeated in her long history of politics in Pakistan.

In my county township there are 22 union councils and in the first phase of the Local Body Elections we won 17 union councils out of 22, the best of any member of the national assembly. The second phase was the election of the district governor and the sub-district governors. We again played a very important and vital role in these elections. We won our district governor elections and we won two out of three sub-districts. Again, it is the best result in Pakistan from any opposition party.

When we won, we held a very good victory procession in which we were standing in an open jeep moving through the roads of the city. I received so many calls from the whole country. So many congratulations. But then I received a phone call from the secretary of Benazir Bhutto who said that she wanted to talk to me. First, she congratulated me. Then she said, “You have achieved the first result in Kasur, so you are the first I am calling”. Then she congratulated me and made a statement which has been published in the entire national press that, “I need a result which Manzoor has gotten in Kasur”.

So, it has been very important for our tendency that we were the only ones fighting against the oppression of the regime and police oppression and we won! Everyone was complaining about the intervention of the state during these elections. When the Lahore president explained to Benazir Bhutto about why he had lost the election he said “there was so much intervention from the police and so many people arrested and this and that” and she replied, “Kasur is not in Pakistan?” (laughter)

So I think the results have been very important for our tendency in the whole of Pakistan. Some people are of the point of view that we won that election by chance. But after these elections we saw that it was a real victory in the whole of Pakistan. The people are now saying that they have real people to work with and that they have a real programme and the methods to win in an election and how to intervene in the mass movement.

Nowadays, the real situation of the Pakistan People’s Party is that there is defection after defection in parliament. The People’s Party has lost the Local Bodies Elections. But still we hold a very good position inside the Party.

The leadership of the People’s Party is not revolutionary, and they themselves would have no problem, obviously in admitting this. It is true that this leadership has disappointed the masses of Pakistan at least three times. They don’t have a programme that can really solve the problems of the Pakistani workers and poor. A more conscious and advanced layer of maybe 200,000 or 300,000 people in Pakistan is aware of this; they remember past events. But there are the millions of other Pakistani workers who see things somewhat differently. They still have the tendency to lean towards the Pakistan People’s Party. They see the PPP as their party and look to its leadership. Sectarians do not understand this, but it is a plain fact and the reason is quite simple: there is no alternative! The masses do not learn from the books of the great teachers of Marxism; they learn from their own direct living experience.

So, in the next period we need to be alert. There could be a major crisis in Pakistan at any time. For instance, Musharraf could be assassinated… Several attempts have already been made on his life by the extreme fundamentalist elements. We can’t rule out the dangerous possibility that there could be a revolt against him from the fundamentalist element within the military itself. At that point there would be another earthquake within the political scene of Pakistan. Because the present set up is a one-man show, if Musharraf goes this parliament will go too. The whole system will be thrown into a deep crisis, and the masses would be drawn into the situation in a big way.

In such a scenario both the ruling elite in Pakistan and the imperialists would have no alternative. Because of her popularity they would be forced to turn to Benazir Bhutto. The memory of her father is still alive among the masses. In spite of her programme she could come back to power. Thus the imperialists would grudgingly accept her return. With this perspective, we are building the genuine socialist opposition within the PPP, within the trade unions, within the youth movement and even within parliament.

We have genuine moral and political authority as we are the only viable force within Pakistan that is fighting against this regime. We are fighting for trade union rights. We are fighting for students' rights. And, in the end, we are also the ones who get the best results in any elections in Pakistan.

So, I think if the PPP came back to power in the coming period there would be a different story in the Pakistani political scene. However, for now there is no major movement in Pakistan. There is a depressed mood in Pakistan especially after the defeat of the Pakistan Telecommunications workers – a movement that was brutally suppressed and terribly mishandled by the union leadership. And now they are bombing Baluchistan

Despite all this, we think that in the next couple of years there may be a movement for change because when you ask any person in Pakistan he or she will tell you how they are fed up with the system and how they want to change the system. So, in the next period, if there is a movement I think we can emerge a mass. We can affect the PPP and we can change the programme and the mood of the PPP. Right now we are not just analysts of the movement, we are not just spectators. As a subjective factor we can play a vital role within the movement and can divert it towards revolution. For that purpose we are preparing and organising many campaigns not only in the trade unions, not only within the PPP but also within the youth, which we believe is our most important and vital work.

We have already organised the Jammu Kashmir Revolutionary Youth Alliance. In the near future this alliance can play a very important role not only on the Kashmir side but also on the Indian side. Perhaps it can lead the whole of the youth movement.

We have also organised another movement of youth called the BNT (Unemployed Youth Movement) through which we are going to register the unemployed youth in Pakistan. Pakistani society is not a balanced society. 52% of the population is under the age of 18. They need education; they need health care and employment. But the state has nothing for 52% of its population. In Sindh province 39% of children have not enrolled in school.

Unemployment is one of the biggest problems of Pakistan. And with the downsizing, cuts and factory closures more unemployment is created. Here again, our youth work, especially within the students’ movement, Youth for International Socialism (YFIS) is playing a very important role.

Because student unions are banned in Pakistan, we have given an alternative platform to them to express themselves and organise their activities. Also, we are organizing the PPP youth wing in which our comrades are in a very good position – especially within the leadership of the provinces. And it is the same story within the students' wing of the PPP. These are the campaigns we are organising.

We are also putting big emphasis on political education and publishing many books. We have published two books in the last two months. One is the Urdu translation of “The Venezuelan Revolution, a Marxist Perspective” written by Alan Woods. Another we published last month is “Kashmir’s Ordeal, A Revolutionary way out” written by comrade Lal Khan.

The book on Venezuela is very important and it is playing a very important role within Pakistan to understand the revolutionary situation in Venezuela and how we can learn from it and organise in Pakistan. So if a new revolutionary situation arises in the next period in Pakistan, we can play a very important role in understanding it through this book.

The book on Kashmir is also very important as it can play a very vital role within Kashmir on both sides of the divide. This is the first book published in Pakistan that has on its cover comments written by two authors from the other side of the Kashmiri divide. One is a Kashmiri Member of the Indian Parliament (the Lok Sabha), A.R. Shaheen and the other is a very important and renowned writer of India, Achin Vanaik, (Professor of International Affairs and Global Relations at the University of Delhi, India). It is not the tradition in Pakistan to publish a book on the issue with comments from the Indian side. This book can indeed be a bridge between the two Kashmirs.

Before our upcoming congress we are going to publish five more books: “Socialism: 50 questions”, the Urdu translation of the Kashmiri book, “Pakistan Perspectives 2006”, “The History Of Our International Movement and Building the Tendency”, and the Urdu translation of our “World Perspectives” document.

We are also in a good position with our parliamentary work. I am a member of the standing committee of Labour Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis. They have a sub-committee on labour. It is probably the first time in the history of Pakistan that they have offered a convenership to any member of the opposition, i.e. myself. We can use this position to spread our ideas within the trade unions and the labour movement.

We deliver speeches within the parliament on every issue that affects the people of Pakistan and we use those speeches among our own comrades and within the wider movement. Even the bills we have moved are under discussion in the standing committee of Labour Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis. We are going to move another bill soon on unemployment. So we are using the parliamentary position, our position within the trade unions and within the youth movement and especially within society and the oppressed nationalities of Pakistan. And we are using these positions to build a powerful Marxist tendency.

It is in these circumstances comrades that we are going to hold our 2006congress. I think it is and should continue to be a milestone in the development of the Pakistani tendency. Even in these difficult conditions we are growing well and becoming a major force. We are expecting an attendance at this year’s congress of over 2000 comrades. We have comrades in every province, among every nationality, in most of the major industries.

The comrades publish papers in Urdu, Sindhi and Farsi, as well as the Asian Marxist Review in English. We are also concentrating on theoretical education, to raise the level of all our comrades. We are actually advancing in every field of life and I think 2006 will be a very important year for our tendency in Pakistan. Things will change and I think this year will be a milestone for the revolution in Pakistan. In the next few years you will see Marxism become a mass force in Pakistan starting with this small tendency. And it is all due to the ideas and the methods and the tactics of our International Tendency. This small victory will be a victory for our whole International. Thank you comrades. (Applause)