PAKISTAN: As U.S. and British peace activists march through the capital to voice support for Imran Khan's peace march to Waziristan, an Islamist group expresses suspicions about their motives

Record ID: 349596

  • Title: PAKISTAN: As U.S. and British peace activists march through the capital to voice support for Imran Khan's peace march to Waziristan, an Islamist group expresses suspicions about their motives
  • Date: 6th October 2012
  • Summary: ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN (OCTOBER 5, 2012) (REUTERS) PAKISTANI SUPPORTERS OF CRICKETER-TURNED-POLITICAIN IMRAN KHAN AND AMERICAN ANTI-WAR ACTIVISTS MARCHING THROUGH ISLAMABAD MARKETS ACTIVISTS AND PROTESTERS CHANTING: "Stop drone attacks." BANNER WHICH READS IN ENGLISH: ''CODEPINK, women for peace.'' ACTIVISTS CHANTING: "We are marching to Waziristan." CLOSE OF MAN CHANTING:
  • Embargoed: 21st October 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Pakistan
  • Country: Pakistan
  • Topics: International Relations,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAED2IEAZ2167OZ2POCY1RTNA8G
  • Story Text: Dozens of U.S. and British protesters, some belonging to the anti-war group Code Pink, marched in Pakistan's Islamabad on Friday (October 5) a day before Imran Khan's peace march against U.S drone attacks in Pakistan's tribal regions begins.
    Khan's march is expected to kick-off in Islamabad on Saturday (October 6) and is scheduled to end in a large rally in a village in South Waziristan on Sunday (October 7).
    As a spokesman for Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on Friday (October 5) denied reports the militant organisation had assured a safe-passage for Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf's "peace march" through their tribal stronghold, and authorities in northwest Pakistan warned cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan's march against U.S drone attacks could be targeted by suicide bombers, American and British peace activists marched through the markets of Islamabad to garner support for the rally.
    "The illegal, immoral, brutal attacks on the innocent people of Waziristan in the FATA region of Pakistan must end now. These are illegal drone strikes carried out by CIA. The CIA is a civilian organisation using military equipment. This is a war crime," said Tyke Berry, a film and television artist from Los Angeles.
    "We are going to Waziristan," the activists chanted." Stop! Stop, drone attacks."
    "They (drone attacks) are illegal, they're against international law. They invade the sovereignty of Pakistan, and they're not productive," said Code Pink activist Linda Wenning.
    Meanwhile, several thousand activists of a hard-core Islamist group, Ahle-Sunnat-Wal-Jamaat (ASWJ), who were attending an annual congregation in Islamabad, were sceptical about the so-called peace march.
    Maulana Ahmed Ludhianvi, chief of the ASWJ, questioned Khan's decision to march to South Waziristan and not to North Waziristan, which has witnessed more US drone strikes and is described as a stronghold of Taliban and al Qaeda elements.
    He said he was especially suspicious of the inclusion of US citizens in a march into a region that was so outrightly anti-American.
    "The Americans are going with him. It looks very suspicious; I hope there is nothing shifty about this. It is a very dangerous sort of development. Why are the Americans going there? If the Americans want to put a stop to the attacks, they should go and protest in their own country," Ludhianvi told Reuters Television.
    Imran Khan told a news conference in Islamabad on Thursday (October 4) the march to South Waziristan would go on despite security fears and doubts over whether the authorities would allow the foreign activists to travel to the tribal belt.
    After the Taliban statement on Friday, Khan told Reuters they had no plans of changing their program and "things would go as planned."
    A graduate from Oxford and very much a man-about-town in London in the late 1970s, Khan became one of the world's most admired cricketers. He was captain of Pakistan's team of talented, but wayward stars and, with many whispers of autocracy, led them to win cricket's World Cup for the first and only time in 1992.
    Khan has a touchy relationship with the United States, Pakistan's ally in the war on militancy and its biggest aid donor. In 2001, he said if he's elected prime minister, he would end Pakistan's cooperation in the fight against militants based in its tribal areas, end the American drone campaign and refuse all U.S. aid.
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