Workers' Liberty

I am from the Labour Party Pakistan, although I am embarrassed to say “Labour Party” when I come to Britain! But it meets the objective reality in Pakistan, where there has been no such class-based party before. The Labour Party Pakistan is fighting for a socialist Pakistan in a society which is dominated by religious fundamentalism, by promoters of the neo-liberal agenda and those who support the war on terror.

General Musharraf has signed up to the neo-liberal IMF agenda, which when it was imposed on the economy and society resulted in absolute poverty. Over 70 percent of the population of Pakistan lives in absolute poverty, on less than one dollar a day.

But there have been big workers’ and peasants’ struggles in Pakistan, and most prominently the lawyers’ movement that started last March.

Because of this campaign there were elections in February this year. But before the elections there was another military coup by Musharraf. After 3 November General Musharraf announced elections, but we advocated a boycott of the election because it legitimised the overthrow of the legal system. Around 33 percent of voters boycotted the election. But the main bourgeois party, the Pakistan People’s Party, won overwhelmingly in three provinces and there was a massive vote to remove Musharraf from power.

Unfortunately, the leadership of the People’s Party is not the same as the reformist leadership of the 1970s. Ali Bhutto, the architect of the People’s Party, had nationalised around 35 percent of the economy in the 1970s and made some advances in trade union rights and women’s rights. After the assassination of Benazir Bhutto there was a massive reaction in Pakistan, and the whole of Pakistan was at a standstill.

And yet the People’s Party leadership, in collaboration with the military dictatorship, decided to take part in the elections at a time when many of their activists said Musharraf should resign and then they would see if they wanted to take part in the elections. Over the last three months there has been a ruling coalition of four bourgeois parties, which is trying to maintain and prolong the presidency of General Musharraf.

So democracy has not come, despite the elections and the military dictatorship still holds state power.

The Labour Party Pakistan has tried to build resistance to the military dictatorship, its first step being building a peasant movement in the army-owned farms of Punjab. 68,000 acres had been invaded and occupied by the military dictatorship. Indeed, twelve percent of the total agricultural land of Pakistan is owned by the Generals.

After taking power they tried to attack the peasants – who, for a hundred years had at least been tenants – and make them work on contracts, so that they could take over ownership of the land for themselves. We decided to work with the peasant movement, saying “We shall pay no more, we pay enough” – over the last hundred years 50 percent of the share of crops have been taken away by the military. Around 2000 peasants refused to pay the share of crops they had to pay for working on these fields. When the military came to claim their taxes seven peasants were killed and over a hundred were injured.

But despite these injuries the movement is still going on and peasants are still occupying land, saying “We will not leave this land”. They might come and kill us — our slogan was “We will own the land, or we will die”. The peasant movement had a high level of militancy and displayed extreme examples of bravery, which gave encouragement to all the people of Pakistan. This movement was the first step for the peasant movements in Pakistan.

The Labour Party Pakistan has also built a radical, independent women’s organisation and a women workers’ helpline, and this organisation mobilised over 2,000 working class women on 1 May, and also a similar number on 8 March. In many cities we have radicalised hundreds of women who had never before taken part in any political activity.

We are a new party in Pakistan, but we have been able to attract the most radical workers, peasants, women and youth activists to our party. At this time we have around 4,000 members. We have a principled position of opposition to religious fundamentalism.

I read some criticism in Solidarity of our decision to join the All Parties Democratic Movement. We welcome this criticism — Solidarity has always given us support and we have translated many of its articles for our newspaper. We have taken part in an alliance which has included religious parties, but it is not a religious alliance. It is not for Islamic revolution. It is alliance to launch a movement against dictatorship and to make the boycott strategy effective.

Alongside this we are building a new alliance, the People’s Democratic Front, in which seven left-wing parties are participating, and that alliance is also finding good support among workers and peasants. It is very difficult for socialists to build a party in a society dominated by religious fundamentalism. So one of our main tasks is to have a political fight against the ideas of religious fundamentalism.

One of our comrades was killed last December, and another was kidnapped and shot at but survived. But our main growth at this time is in the North-West Frontier Province, which is dominated by religious fundamentalists but where a lot of radicalisation is taking place.

Thank you for giving me this platform. When I heard about the AWL conference I hoped to attend at least for some time. We have been inspired by your in-depth analysis of politics, particularly of the workers’ movement. We bring you revolutionary greetings. Thank you very much.

• The conference also heard speakers from the LCR (France) and the Worker-communist Party of Kurdistan. Written greetings were received from Lalit (Mauritius), the New Left (Ukraine), Polish comrades and Liaisons-le Militant (France).