TO WHOM IT SHOULD CONCERN !
No Aid to Musharraf's Dictatorship in Pakistan! No Arming and Training of Tribal Militias! We need funds for working families at home, not for reckless intervention. The United States is bringing Iraq to Pakistan. Modeled on the costly and dangerous experiment of training and arming Sunni militias in Iraq's Anbar province, the U.S. military's Special Operations Command is making plans to increase the number of military trainers in Pakistan and "directly finance a tribal paramilitary force" composed of tribes that have "agreed to fight Al Qaeda and foreign extremists."Meanwhile, the Consolidated Appropriations Act (2008) passed by Congress in mid-December will allow Pakistan to receive $250 million of the $300 million it receives annually from the United States in military assistance together with the sale of F-16 aircraft, 700 air-to-air missiles, and P-3C surveillance planes to Pakistan. In the last six years, Pakistans military junta has been awarded over $5 billion in aid to continue suffocating civil society in Pakistan in the guise of fighting terrorism. On November 3, 2007, the government of Pervaiz Musharraf, whose brutal dictatorship has locked up lawyers, journalists, union activists, and members of rival political parties since he took power in a military coup in 1997 and imposed martial law in Pakistan. The unwarranted dismissal of judges, suspension of the Constitution, and declaration of a state of emergency on November 3 by the Musharraf government has particularly heightened a situation rife with cases of forced disappearances, police brutality, torture, mass illegal arrests, and other violations of the rule of law. Washington is cutting social programs for health, education, housing and the environment for working families while destabilizing Pakistan through training tribal militias and propping up Pervaiz Musharraf's brutal dictatorship. Decades of foreign aid going to military spending in Pakistan has undermined democratic institutions and fueled forces of oppression, reaction, and extremism.- I support the right of the people of Pakistan to oppose Pervaiz Musharraf's dictatorship. - I support their just and democratic demand for the restoration of an independent judiciary. - I demand an immediate end to all military aid to Pakistan. - I deplore the U.S. military's reckless intervention in Pakistan.
Sincerely,
THE PEOPLE OF PAKISTAN
No comments:
Post a Comment