Rally protests against inflation, islands’ usurpation, feudalism

The Awami Workers Party (AWP) on Saturday held a rally to protest against the rising inflation and privatisation of government entities, the usurpation of islands in Sindh and Balochistan, feudalism and enforced disappearances. They also demanded that the government make agricultural reforms.

A large number of party workers, supporters of other left-leaning political groups and rights bodies took part in the rally that started from Regal Chowk and ended at Fawara Chowk.

The participants included the National Party, the Awami Jamhoori Party, the Jeay Sindh Mahaz, the Communist Party Pakistan, the Pakistan Peoples Party’s Shaheed Bhutto faction, the Lyari Awami Mahaz, the Voice of Shia Missing Persons, the Baloch Students Action Committee and the Karachi Bachao Tehreek.

AWP Karachi General Secretary Khurram Ali said the issues of Karachi and the rest of Sindh are the same, where the remnants of the feudal system and comprador state institutions have usurped all the province’s resources.

He said people are forced to live under brutal political, social and economic conditions. “Feudal lords and their patronisers have divided Sindh’s peasants and labourers to stop the oppressed classes from uniting and initiating a movement of their own.”

He said that the point of holding the rally in Karachi was to make its people realise that being the inhabitants of Sindh’s largest city, they will have to rise against federal monopoly as well as the remnants of feudalism and comprador bourgeoisie in the province.

AWP Sindh President Bakhshal Thallo said the federal government’s usurpation of Sindh’s islands through a presidential ordinance is not just a decision against the province but also an attempt to rob the fishing community of their livelihoods, which will also permanently damage the province’s ecosystem.

AWP General Secretary Advocate Akhtar Hussain said the people of Sindh reject the federal government’s decision to build cities on the islands, and asked the federal and provincial governments to not profit off of these essential resources.

AWP Central President Yusuf Mastikhan said Sindh is not a property of the federal government or a thing that should be sold off to a land grabber.

“Sindh belongs to its people, its labourers, its peasants and its salaried classes. Neither will we let the federal government usurp Sindh’s islands nor will we let the land grabbers dispossess us of our land in Malir and Kathore.”

AWP Karachi President Shafi Shaikh said that through the implementation of an agenda inspired by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, Pakistan is being forced to become slaves. Theatre group Laal Hartaal also performed on the occasion.