Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) chief Manzoor Pashteen has accused Pakistan’s military of killings, enforced disappearances and plunder of resources in the country’s Pashtun regions while urging the diaspora to work towards isolating Islamabad internationally.
“The state is shedding Pashtun and Afghan blood like water. It has plundered our resources and destroyed our homeland,” said Pashteen while virtually addressing an international conference organised by PTM Canada in Toronto.
He alleged that many Pashtuns were still being held in the military’s “private prisons” while citing the continued imprisonment of PTM leaders Ali Wazir and Haji Samad.
Pashteen dismissed Pakistan’s democracy as a facade and also questioned the military’s counter-terrorism justification.
“Look at its parliament: the military brings in whoever it wants and removes whoever it does not want. Keeping hopes alive in such a system was a waste of time. What kind of strange terrorism is this that does not exist in Punjab, while projects of terrorism are implemented only in Pashtunkhwa?”, he asked and called on Pashtuns, Baloch, Sindhis and Kashmiris to unite against the “common enemy”.
The conference titled ‘Unmasking Pakistan’s Atrocities’ was attended by hundreds of people. It adopted a declaration with the demands of an independent truth and reconciliation commission under UN auspices; disclosure of the whereabouts of missing persons; release of those unlawfully detained; lifting of the ban on PTM; and, local control over land and natural resources.
Chris Alexander, a former Canadian Ambassador to Afghanistan, also addressed the gathering and accused Pakistan’s military leadership of seeking to dominate Afghanistan through proxies and terrorism.
“End the violence. That is the key to everything,” he said.
Former Afghan member of Parliament and ex-Ambassador to Canada, Shinkai Karokhail, said Pakistan nurtures terrorism and also presents itself as its victim. She said Afghans would take documented evidence of Pakistan’s atrocities to every international forum.
PTM was founded in 2014 and has campaigned against extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances in Pakistan where it was banned in October 2024 under the so-called ‘Anti-Terrorism Act’.
–IANS
