Pakistan

The struggle against privatisation is heating up in Pakistan. Today, all the major papers contained articles and reports on Comrade Manzoor’s magnificent intervention in the National Assembly against the privatisation of Pakistan Steel Mills.

A wave of protests and strikes has swept the capital of Pakistan-held Kashmir, Muzafferabad. As we reported yesterday, several comrades were arrested yesterday at a demonstration. The response of the people of Kashmir was immediate and decisive - demonstrations were held and roadblocks were erected. In the end our comrades were released.

Comrade Manzoor Ahmed, Member of the Pakistan National Assembly, along with several other MNAs has submitted two motions against the privatisation of Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) and Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL). We publish the following report from DAWN, Pakistan's most widely circulated English daily newspaper. 

After the PTCL workforce, now it is the workers of WAPDA who are faced with the prospect of privatisation. Such a measure would be detrimental to the interests not only of the WAPDA workers but of all the workers and poor of Pakistan. The PTCL workers put up a brave fight but were let down by the union leaders. Let this not happen again!

We provide this report by Alan Woods from Kashmir, which details the beauty of the region, the pride and strength of its people, as well as the terrible destruction caused by the earthquake.

Over 200 people attended a recent meeting in Rawalpindi for the launching of the book Kashmir's Ordeal,by Lal Khan. Among the speakers were Alan Woods, editor of Marxist.com, trade union leaders from the Rawalpindi-Islamabad region, leading figures of the revolutionary youth movement in Kashmir, and Member of the National Assembly, Zulfiqar Gondal, who all came to discuss the way forward for the workers, peasants, and youth of Kashmir.

We are proud to announce the launching of a new website by the Pakistani Marxists of The Struggle: www.struggle.com.pk. The site will be in Urdu and will publish both articles on the general situation in Pakistan and translations from Marxist.com.

In solidarity with the protests being organised by students and youth organisations in the United States and many other countries around the world against imperialist aggression in Iraq, YFIS in Pakistan organised protest rallies and demonstrations in several cities around the country. Reports of these activities are pouring in from various cities and remote areas of country through different channels due to the unevenness of technological development here.

Over the past week, February 11-18, the Jammu Kashmir National Students’ Federation (Marxist) participated in a massive mobilization of youth and students. Over the course of the week hundreds of students and youth poured into the streets under the banner of Marxist internationalism across all eight districts of Kashmir.

After the devastating earthquake of October 8, which turned three districts of Kashmir into rubble, and despite the failure of the state in the rescue and rehabilitation work and the bitter hardships of the freezing winter, life in the Himalayan valley is beginning to return to normal. The real struggle for freedom and emancipation, the class struggle, is once again on the order of the day. In light of this the Marxists in Kashmir have launched a week of activities for February 11 to 18.

On February 11 and 12, a two-day Marxist Youth School was held in Jamshoro in Sindh. 35 young comrades from cities all across Sindh, including Karachi, Hyderabad, Tando Mohd Khan, Thata, Dado and Khairpur Nathan Shah, and Jamshoro, participated in the school.

In January the Belgian solidarity choir, Hei Pasoep held a concert in Antwerp and donated the income to the PTUDC sponsored Revolutionary Solidarity Caravans presently involved in relief work in the areas devastated by last year’s earthquake. The concert was a huge success and the people in the camps back in Kashmir have shown their appreciation.