Anti-drone rally: PTI marches to the brink, turns around

Imran declares the journey a victory, addresses gathering in Tank.

TANK:

The Peace March may not have reached its intended destination, but for the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chief, the journey itself was a victory.

“We have given our message - it has gone across the world,” Imran told an impromptu gathering of about 5,000 raucous PTI supporters who had come along with the PTI chief on the Peace March to South Waziristan.

“We have succeeded in raising this issue. We came here to raise this issue, we came here to take a stand against drones,” he said to his supporters in a dusty ground in Tank.

“The drones are inhumane,” Imran said, donning a white turban.

“Are these people not humans? These humans have names. Drone attacks are a violation of human rights,” the PTI chief said, adding that drone strikes only whip anti-American sentiments in Pakistan.

Journey to the brink

Despite the odds and the treachery of the tribal terrain, a positive vibe resonated through the Peace March from the start on Sunday morning.

Despite a late night, the convoy came back to life on Tank Road, just outside DI Khan, at 8 am.

The convoy had hit the road early, but almost immediately hit snags. The first police blockade came before Tank, stopping the convoy for over two hours. Here, families of drone victims alighted from their vehicles, carrying placards and pictures of children killed in drone strikes.

Naseem Khan Daur, from Mir Ali in North Waziristan, said he had brought a coach full of victims, most of whom had lost their limbs, for the gathering. He said that the concept of highly accurate strikes was a myth.

“It’s not that only one house is destroyed,” he said. “Our houses are mud structures; when a strike hits one house, even if we are to believe that terrorists are living there, it results in the destruction of dozens of houses. It results in dozens of deaths and injuries, too,” he added.

Another resident of Mir Ali said his brother had been targeted by a drone attack when he was travelling on the road. He said his brother had nothing to do with the Taliban or any other militants.

Eventually the first barricade relented in the face of the growing convoy, which was now stretching several kilometers on a single-lane road, led by the vehicle of the PTI chairman.

Powering through

The heat of day had begun bearing down on the participants of the convoy. But dust and scorching sun did nothing to dampen spirits. It continued marching on, having already breached a point that most expected it to turn back from.

“The captain is setting the field,” said a beaming deputy information secretary of the PTI, commenting on the strategy of the convoy.

“They’re pleading him to stop. They’re threatening him. But he’s marching ahead.”

The exuberance of the participants was epitomised in Gara Pathar on Wana Road, when a massive trailer-mounted container, parked across a bridge to stop the convoy was physically overturned by participants and locals. The convoy powered through.

Five blockades down, as the clock struck three, nothing, it seemed, could stop this convoy. It had approached the border of South Waziristan.

Two minutes later, a silver vehicle was seen zooming off in the opposite direction.

It was the PTI chairman’s SUV.

Turning back

After powering through a number of barricades, and defying various threats, the Peace March made a sudden turn at 3 pm on Sunday afternoon close to the South Waziristan border.

It is unclear what caused the sudden turn around, but the PTI chairman later said in his speech that he was told that the lives of those in the convoy, local and international peace activists, PTI workers, leaders and supporters, were at risk.

Khan said that the turnaround was only due to the time factor – given that the convoy, stopped along the way at so many points, would have made it to its destination after nightfall – a time when security would be almost zero.

Call from ‘high-ups’

Quarters privy to the central leadership’s decision-making process said that Khan had, almost certainly, gotten a frantic call from “high-ups” warning of a plan to ambush the convoy not too far from the place it had already reached. The quarters spoke of intercepts that had revealed such a plan.

The turnaround didn’t seem to be pre-planned, given that at least two central leaders of the PTI seemed to be completely in the dark.

After the sudden turnaround, a visibly distressed Dr Arif Alvi told The Express Tribune on the road that he had “no idea” what had just happened and why.

Another leader, Naeemul Haq, who talked to a couple of media personnel, said he was not aware of the fresh threats received by the convoy at that point in time, nor what prompted the volte-face. However, he did indirectly say that the PTI and its chairman had been asked by the Army to turn around.

“We didn’t adhere to the initial roadblocks because they were placed by the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government, which is constantly working against the PTI,” said Haq, but added that the PTI “didn’t want to go against the Army’s wishes in an area were it is fighting a battle for peace.”

The decision, however practical, was inexplicable to some. Arshad and his companions, 18 vehicles in all, had come from Loralai, Balochistan to join the rally. He said he was confused at the turning around, believing that there was no danger ahead. “This is a peace march,” he said, distressed.

With additional input from agencies.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 8^th, 2012.