PAKISTAN: 'No more Hiroshimas'
LAHORE — A seminar on the theme "No More Hiroshimas" was organised jointly by Lahore Peace Forum and Joint Action Committee for Peoples Rights on August 6 at Lahore Press Club. Despite severe rain, more than 200 people turned up to hear well-known human right activists and trade union leaders. Several leaders of peasant organisations and trade unions were in the audience.
Punjabi poet Arif Shah Prohnaa received tremendous applause when he spoke against price hikes and linked them with Pakistan's construction of the unwanted atomic bomb. At the end of seminar, the Labour Party Pakistan's cultural wing presented a short play, Annanaas and Atom Bomb, by Khawaja Ahmed Abbas.
Well-known human rights activist Asthma Jehangir said that people of Pakistan and India are not in favour of war. They want a peaceful solution to the Kashmir issue. Jehangir opposed the nuclear madness of the rulers of India and Pakistan and criticised the military rulers of Pakistan. She said that no child of Lahore, Delhi or Peshawar should become victims of a nuclear holocaust like that suffered by Hiroshima. Jehangir suggested that the peace movement join the struggle for the restoration of democracy in Pakistan.
IA Rehman, from the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, warned the audience that the threat of nuclear war is greater than any other time in the history of Pakistan. He said he remembered the day of August 6, 1945. When he heard of the terrible loss of life caused by the US atom bombing of Hiroshima, he decided to launch a movement against nuclear weapons.
The Labour Party Pakistan's Farooq Tariq said that the launch of the Lahore Peace Forum was the beginning of "a real mass peace movement" in Pakistan. "A peace movement isolated from the other struggles of the Pakistan people will not be effective", Tariq said. He severely criticised US imperialism for maintaining its nuclear arsenal. US claims to support disarmament are "eye wash", Tariq said.
Moeen Nawaz Punnu of the Rustum Sehrab Cycle Factory Workers' Union assured the audience of the trade unions' support for the peace movement.
The Lahore Peace Forum can be contacted by email at <lahore.peace@usa.net>.
BY FAROOQ SULEHRIA