HYDERABAD, July 24: Awami Tehrik chief and Sindh Water Committee president Rasool Bux Palijo has expressed concern over the government policy under which, he blamed, an ethnic party and feudal lords are being backed to win the local body elections.

“Just as the imperialist masters are using the slogan of war on terror to terrorize weaker countries like Syria, Iran and North Korea their camp-followers here are using other false slogans to achieve their illegitimate and evil anti-people objects” he said.

Speaking at the press club here the other day, Mr Palijo said General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had recently said that water flowing into sea during the flood season was going waste and had there been a dam, all this water could have been saved for use during the next four or five years.

He said Gen Musharraf was of the view that water being wasted was tantamount to committing suicide and threatened that he would not allow such suicide, meaning that whatever the people might say, he would construct dams on the Indus River by hook or crook.

“We believe that these statements are a precursor and an indicator of what havoc is about to befall Sindh and in fact on Pakistan after the local government elections or rather pre-planned and pre-arranged selections” he said.

Mr Palijo said flood water was not dependable water and big and costly dams and canals could not be built on the expectation that floods would occur every year.

“This time around the Indus flood plain (kutcho) is being flooded after seven years” he said.

He said neither the existing dams Mangla and Tarbila had not prevented five-yearly floods nor would any of the proposed dams because they were being filed with silt instead of flood water.

AT chief said Sindh would especially be made a target in which an ethnic party would be given a walkover along with anti-people feudal and tribal lords playing second fiddle.

Mr Palijo criticized the prime minister’s Hyderabad visit as blatant contradiction of laws made by the election commission.

He called upon the election commission and the civil society to notice the grant of Rs1 billion for the city and release of Rs10 billion promised more that two years ago on the eve of local body elections.

“In each district headquarter lists are being prepared of nominees of an ethnic party and the PML-Q who will be given jobs after years of artificially inflicted unemployment, deliberate ruination of agriculture, rural trade and commerce and pauperization of Sindhi population” he said.

He said these were the same teacher’s jobs about which Sindh’s chief minister had proudly announced more than once that 20,000 meritorious youths would be given jobs.

“Now at last it has become clear that only those have the required merit who have devoted their lives to serving the great cause of ethnicity and their subservient feudal and tribal lords” he said.

He said all around Sindh ministers and advisers of an ethnic party were distributing bicycles, sewing machines and cash cheques. “Why now”, he questioned.

Mr Palijo alleged that since they (the MQM) had taken the control of Sindh, Rs40 crores were being collected from departments of the Sindh government each month and transported to the chief of the party in London.

“Every posting and every work in the Sindh government is generally believed to be up for sale. Our resources are being stolen, poverty has risen tremendously as all government and World Bank reports indicate” he said.

“The chief minister is on record that he can do nothing about the construction of the greater Thal canal despite the fact that the house, of which he is the leader, twice passed unanimous resolutions against it”.

He demanded that the Arbab government should step down if it could not defend Sindh’s principled stance on the water issue.

He alleged officials of the local government department had been asked to work as personal servants of the adviser and Sindh government’s vehicles plus POL had been placed at the disposal of members of an ethnic party.

“In short the whole government machinery has been placed at their disposal to ensure the victory of an ethnic party” he said.

He said after the local body elections, district governments of Sindh would be handed over to an ethnic party and their appendage feudal gentry.

He said using this period of rule by General Musharraf, they would move towards their cherished aim of bisecting Sindh to carve out Jinnahpur.

Mr Palijo said the MQM had done nothing for Sindh and its capital city despite the fact it remained uncrowned king for years and years.

He said the MQM and anti-people feudal lords whom he termed hangers-on of the establishment would do nothing for Sindh and its cities.

He called upon the friends of Sindh, whatever language they might speak, all intellectuals, teachers, students, businessmen, doctors, engineers, haris, zamindars, women and children to join hands in a peaceful, democratic struggle to defeat the anti-people designs of the government.