Call for parliamentary scrutiny of defence budget

Protestors demand focus on neglected sectors like education, health.

Scores of political activists, students, trade unionists and ordinary citizens held a rally from the National Press Club to D-chowk on Thursday to demand parliamentary debate and scrutiny over defence expenditures during the upcoming budget session.

According to a press release by Awami Shehri Mahaz, a coalition of left-wing political parties, student groups and trade unions, the protesters demanded that attention be diverted towards health, education and other severely neglected sectors.

The protest was organised under the platform of the ‘Awami Shehri Mahaz’, a coalition of left-wing political parties, student groups and trade unions. The demonstrators were carrying banners and placards calling for accountability of the military establishment and the replacement of the national security state with a people’s welfare state. Red flags also made the rally a colourful spectacle while the large number of youth present on the occasion chanted vociferous slogans against what they termed as the “resource-grabbing antics of military personnel”.

Speaking at the conclusion of the rally, Aasim Sajjad of the Worker’s Party Pakistan (WPP) said over the past few weeks numerous incidents including the discovery and killing of Osama bin Laden in the garrison town of Abbotabad have made clear once and for all that the military and its expenditures need to be made subject to public scrutiny. He said it is no longer acceptable to the long-suffering people of Pakistan that the military is allocated upto 40% of the federal budget under the pretext that Pakistan faces a perennial existential threat. Aasim Sajjad said working people need schools, hospitals, clean drinking water, jobs and other basic amenities and after 63 years it is time to change the priorities of the state away from ‘national security’ towards ‘human security.

Ayub Malik, general secretary of the Awami Party Pakistan (APP), said all over the world professional militaries are answerable to the elected representatives of the people and this must be the case in Pakistan as well. He said the root of the problem is that the military establishment continues to insist on enmity with neighbouring countries to justify its monopoly over public resources. Ayub Malik said Pakistan’s people want to be at peace with their neighbours and this is only possible if there is civilian oversight of the military and accountability of its performance.

Other speakers on the occasion included Professor Mushtaq Gaadi from Quaid-e-Azam University, well-known trader and PPP stalwart Jehangir Akhtar, student leader Alia Amirali from NSF, and trade unionists Moazzam Ali (Pakistan Post) and Azad Qadri (PTCL). The protestors warned the parliament that it must take up their demands, otherwise its own credibility will be called into question.



Published in The Express Tribune, May 28^th, 2011.