Achakzai calls for respect for Pashtun rights

NA opposition leader rejects use of Pashtun lands for 'proxy wars', demands equitable political order

QUETTA:

Pashtun rights and resources cannot be permanently controlled through force, and the state must listen to the Pashtun voice and respect their fundamental, constitutional, political, economic and national rights, Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) chairman and TTAP chief Mahmood Khan Achakzai warned on Sunday.

He said Pashtuns should not be forced to take their case to international forums.

"State affairs can be run through the force of the gun, but the minds of the people, their political consciousness, constitutional rights and resources cannot be permanently controlled," he said while delivering the opening address at a three-day public jirga of Southern Pakhtunkhwa, held in Quetta under the chairmanship of Nawab Ayaz Khan Jogezai.

Achakzai said Pashtuns were passing through an extraordinary period in their history, with political uncertainty, economic hardship, a serious law and order situation and deprivation of their resources and powers having severely affected Pashtun society.

He said the public jirga of southern Pakhtunkhwa had been convened because it was not merely a forum of political parties, but also provided an opportunity for public opinion, collective wisdom and people from all schools of thought to express their views directly.

He said that alongside external factors, the negligence, shortcomings and internal weaknesses of Pashtuns as a nation could not be ignored.

Achakzai said nature had endowed Pakhtunkhwa with abundant natural resources, minerals and other blessings. Their ancestors, he added, had defended the land and its resources for centuries, but today those very resources and the region's geographical and strategic importance had become a source of trouble for the people instead of contributing to their prosperity and development.

He said that the jirga was not against any nation, race or nationality.

"Pashtuns are not advocates of hatred or discrimination against any other human being, nation or religion," he said. "However, we will never accept that the land of the Pashtuns be made, at any cost, a battleground for the wars, proxies and competing interests of others."

The opposition leader alleged that the lands of local nations and tribes were being systematically divided by allotting them to non-local individuals, institutions and so-called companies.

"This cannot be accepted under any circumstances," he said.

He warned that the people's resources and lands could not be occupied through the force of the gun.