QUETTA: Some world powers want to start another war, said the chairman of the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP), Mahmood Khan Achakzai, adding that a new conflict would cause a lot of destruction and bloodshed in the region.

The PkMAP chief was speaking at a public meeting here on Wednesday at the Sadiq Shaheed Football Ground in connection with the 42nd death anniversary of Khan Abdul Samad Khan Achakzai.

PkMAP’s central secretary and former senator Rauf Lala, Nawab Ayaz Khan Jogezai, Senator Usman Kakar, provincial Information Minister Abdul Rahim Ziaratwal and other party leaders also spoke on the occasion and paid rich tribute to the late leader.

“Enough Pakhtun blood has been shed,” said PkMAP’s chairman. “We cannot tolerate further violence on our land for fulfilling the nefarious designs of others.”

He urged all politicians, particularly those representing conflict-hit regions, to play their part in protecting “our land and lives of our people”. “The Pakhtun, including political and religious leaders, should forget their differences and forge unity in their ranks to come up with a strategy to protect and defend our land,” said Mr Achakzai.

He maintained that due to interference by regional and international players, “a 35-year war has destroyed Afghanistan and badly affected the Pakhtun-populated areas on this side of the Durand Line as well”.

“The international and regional powers should respect the sovereignty and independence of Afghanistan,” he said, adding that they should facilitate peace and stability in the country in order to ensure regional stability.

The PkMAP chief said that Pakistan was a federation wherein powers and resources were judiciously distributed under the Constitution which sought to guarantee stability and prosperity of the people living in the country.

Talking about the internally displaced persons and their return to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), he said they should be compensated for the losses they had suffered.

Speakers on the occasion described Khan Abdul Samad Khan as a great leader, statesman and rights activist who struggled tirelessly for the independence of the subcontinent. Rauf Lala reminded everyone present that Samad Khan was among the first leaders in the subcontinent who started a political struggle for independence.

He said the late leader was in the eighth grade when he led a protest against the British Raj and in support of the Khilafat Movement. As a punishment, he was expelled from school.

After 1947, he said, Samad Khan struggled for democracy, constitutionalism, federalism, provincial autonomy, universal suffrage and unification of the Pakhtun in one autonomous unit. Usman Kakar said that as followers of Samad Khan, “we are opposed to and condemn foreign intervention in Afghanistan”.

He said that some state policies of the past had resulted in terrorism and lawlessness in the provinces.

“The state should denounce such policies,” he said, adding that growing interference of law-enforcement agencies in provincial affairs was against the spirit of provincial autonomy.

Published in Dawn, December 3rd, 2015