Linda Waldron, Lahore
On December 6, 2000 protesters participated in an anti-imperialist rally organised by the Labour Party Pakistan (LPP). Following the rally, the protesters marched through downtown Lahore to Lakshmi Chowk, one of the largest traffic junctions in this city of 7 million people.
The rally was initially banned by the police but its large size and the determination of participants convinced the police to permit it to proceed.
The rally was organised around the slogans "Down with imperialism!", "Workers of the world unite!", "No to WTO/Bush-Musharraf!", "No to imperialist globalisation!" and "An injury to one is an injury to all".
Ten busloads of brick-kiln workers participated, organised by the Pakistan Brick Kiln Workers Union. Contingents from the Pakistan Peasant Alliance, the National Trade Union Federation, students from local colleges and LPP members from various districts of Punjab also attended. A 200-strong contingent of women from the Women Workers Helpline led the rally, firing up the workers and peasants with slogans to end imperialism, war and privatisation.
On reaching Lakshmi Chowk, the marchers staged a sit-down protest. Hundreds of shop owners and office workers came onto the surrounding streets to hear what the protesters had to say. Commuters on recently privatised buses cheered the protester's anti-privatisation message.
Addressing the protest, Farooq Tariq, general secretary of the LPP, warned brick-kiln owners (who use bonded labour): "We will picket every factory and take action against every injustice to workers." He also announced that the LPP would join "any grand alliance of opposition" to General Pervez Musharraf's government. "If Musharraf wants to do politics", said Tariq, "he must remove his uniform".
Tariq's demand referred to Musharraf's recent illegal constitutional change that allowed him to be both president and commander of the Pakistani armed forces.
Ray Fulcher gave greetings from the Australian Socialist Alliance, calling for international solidarity between workers and condemning the US-led imperialist invasion of Iraq.
LPP chairperson Nishar Shah, LPP finance Secretary Nasli Javed and Ghani Zaman, general secretary of the Karachi Shipyard Workers Union, also spoke, denouncing the policies of the Musharraf regime and its attacks on workers and peasants.
Tariq told Green Left Weekly that the protest "was a strong reply to fundamentalist parties who mobilise around anti-government rhetoric but whose support is essential to the Musharraf dictatorship. This is our answer to the fundamentalists."
The protest action concluded the LPP's national conference. At the conference 85 delegates discussed the international and national political situation. Delegates noted the growth of the party, with the opening of a new branch in the North-West Frontier province — the traditional stronghold of Islamic fundamentalism in Pakistan.
Delegates voted to prioritise organising young people through the Progressive Youth Front, increasing the number of women in the party's leadership, deepening the party's trade union work and extending Marxist education among all levels of the LPP's membership.
From Green Left Weekly, December 15, 2004.
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