BY FAROOQ TARIQ
& RIZWAN ATTA
LAHORE — "If workers want to remember the martyrs of the 1886 uprising of Chicago, they should hold the meetings indoors", stated retired general Moeen Haider, federal interior minister, on April 28. "No-one, including the workers, will be allowed to rally on May Day", he warned.
Never before in the history of Pakistan has any government, civil or military, banned the workers' traditional May Day rallies. Even during the military regime of General Zia ul-Haq, May Day rallies were not banned.
The aim of this statement, and many other warnings by military government officials in various parts of Pakistan, was to stop the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) rally planned for Karachi on May Day.
The ARD leadership on April 8 decided to hold a public meeting on May Day at the historic Nishtar Park to protest General Pervaiz Musharraf's policies of "economic restructuring", down-sizing and privatisation. These policies are being imposed to please the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
Both these imperialist institutions have hailed the economic policies of the military regime, which are resulting in a massive wave of price hikes and increasing unemployment. More than 130,000 public employees are to lose their jobs if the regime's "restructuring plans" go ahead.
More than 2000 ARD activists, including the chairperson of the socialist Labour Party Pakistan (LPP) Shoaib Bhatti, were arrested in the last week of April in a bid to foil the ARD rally. Bhatti remains in custody.
On March 23, a similar ARD rally was banned and several thousand oppositionists were detained for several days.
While condemning the April arrests, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, chief of Jamaat-i-Islami, the main religious fundamentalist party in Pakistan, declared that the arrests were part of a strategy by the military regime "to make the ARD leadership popular".
This is nonsense. It is very clear that the military regime has become very unpopular because of its economic policies. Increased taxes, the reduction of the public sector, increased oil prices and the privatisation of electricity, gas, transport and water services have been the main economic priorities of the military regime. During its one and a half years in power, the regime has tried to fulfill the conditions of the IMF and World Bank.
The regime knew that the tremendous anger of the workers would have been reflected in the May Day rallies. It is for this reason that they were banned.
The LPP condemned the banning of May Day rallies by the regime and declared that it would defy the ban in Karachi. ARD leaders met secretly on April 28 and also promised to converge at Nishtar Park. ARD leaders agreed to call for a country-wide strike after May 1.
ARD secretary for labour affairs Ghulam Akbar, who is also LPP vice-chairperson, appealed to workers to participate "with full strength" in the May Day rally.
The Punjab ARD decided that all its component parties would participate in a protest meeting organised by the LPP on May Day at the Lahore Press Club. They also decided that some leaders would try to fly to Karachi in a bid to attend the Karachi rally.
On May 1, LPP general secretary Farooq Tariq was arrested in Lahore, along with 14 other ARD leaders, as he was going to the airport to fly to Karachi. He was released late on May 3.
On April 30, police in Karachi arrested about 100 opposition activists in a bid to prevent the planned May Day rally against military rule from going ahead. Most of the main ARD leadership was banned from entering Sindh province. Those who were able to arrive at Karachi airport were sent back or arrested.
On May 1, Karachi was under a virtual curfew with police and paramilitary forces patrolling the streets. Nishtar Park was sealed off.
Meanwhile, in Lahore on May 1, police stopped several May Day rallies. Workers gathered in the Bukhtiar Labour Hall to hold a rally organised by All Pakistan Trade Union Workers Confederation but the heavy police presence stopped the rally. In another rally, organised by railway workers near the railway station, police baton-charged, injuring many workers.
More than 400 people attended the May 1 LPP protest meeting.
Green Left Weekly readers are urged to send protest letters condemning the banning of May Day rallies and calling for the release of Labour Party Pakistan chairperson Shoaib Bhatti and other ARD leaders to <ce@pak.gov.pk>.
[Farooq Tariq is general secretary of the Labour Party Pakistan. Rizwan Atta is a member of the LPP national committee.]