Violating sovereignty: ‘Drones report validates PPP stance’

Rabbani wants Musharraf tried for granting permission for strikes.

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) on Wednesday said the Amnesty International’s report on drone attacks validated its stance that the strikes violated international laws.

“The PPP has always been saying that the US drone attacks violated our sovereignty,” said PPP Senator Raza Rabbani.

He welcomed the report but said that the international community took time to come up with this realisation.



The US, in response, said it did all to avoid civilian casualties. The comments from the US came a day before Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was expected to bring up concerns about the US tactic in talks with US President Barack Obama at the White House.

Senator Rabbani said the report launched by Amnesty International endorsed the viewpoint of PPP and also proved that facts cannot be hidden for long.

He said former military dictator Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf, in an interview, had conceded to have given the US permission for drone strikes. After having referred to Musharraf’s confession, Rabbani demanded of the government to investigate this aspect as well.

About Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s visit to the US, Rabbani said that the premier should take up the drone issue with US authorities and with President Barack Obama.

Talking about recently promulgated Pakistan Protection Ordinance, Rabbani said the legislation should have been done by the parliament. Otherwise, he added, “It would be negation of the parliamentary system.”

Rabbani said that several provisions of the Ordinance infringed upon the fundamental rights. President Mamnoon Hussain had promulgated the ordinance on October 20, days after promulgating several other amendments in the anti-terrorism act.

Rabbani criticised the government for undue delay in making the standing committees of the National Assembly operational, saying that the committees had been elected but they were still headless as the government did not convene meeting of these panels for electing their respective chairpersons.

The government had, earlier, missed the deadline in electing the standing committees and finally 34 panels were elected on August 21 after more than six weeks of delay. However, two months have lapsed since election of the standing committees but the government had not yet convened any meeting.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 24^th, 2013.