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Historic Pakistan peace march protests U.S. drone strikes

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Waziristan peace march (photo: Code Pink)

A delegation of activists from Code Pink joined thousands of people on a historic Waziristan peace march this weekend to protest U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan. Although the caravan and marchers have been blocked at Koorh Checkpoint at the entrance to Waziristan and prevented from reaching their final rally location inside the tribal area (also referred to as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas FATA), they are making waves across the region.

Starting out in Islamabad Saturday marchers reached Mianwali and were met by a huge enthusiastic crowd who had been alerted foreigners would be joining them. Organized by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI – Justice, Humanity, Self-esteem), the march was led by politician Imran Khan and received wide media attention.

The marchers set off on their second day from Taank heading towards Kotkai via Jandola and Aspinkai Raghzai. The authorities blocked the road to Kotkai with containers.

There are over 20 television broadcast videos from today archived by PTI at this one link. Listen to the enthusiasm when Medea Benjamin addresses the cheering overflowing crowd:

We are so grateful that despite what our government are doing you understand there are Americans like us who are in solidarity with you and against our government’s policies.

NYT:

“We kill a lot of innocent people,” said Medea Benjamin, a cofounder of Codepink and part of the delegation in Pakistan. She called the attacks “barbaric assassinations.”

Speaking of the tribal areas, she said, “This is a culture that very much believes in revenge, and then they seek revenge by trying to kill Americans. So we are just perpetuating a cycle of violence and it’s got to stop somewhere, and that’s why we are putting our bodies on the line by trying to go to Waziristan to say no.”

Ms. Benjamin said her group also was participating in the march to “put significant pressure on the Obama administration to come clean about these drone attacks, to recognize how inhumane and counterproductive they are.”

Before the convoy got under way in Pakistan, members of the Codepink delegation met with Richard E. Hoagland, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, and he was presented with a petition calling for an end to the drone strikes.

CNN:

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) — A protest march against U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, led by former cricket star turned politician Imran Khan, came to a halt on Sunday when authorities blocked access to the demonstration’s final destination in the tribal region, officials told CNN.

Authorities used steel shipping containers and security forces to seal off the road entering South Waziristan, where protesters had planned to hold a rally on Sunday, local government official Shahid Ullah said.

When confronted with the roadblock, Khan directed protesters to turn back, saying the march had achieved its goal of drawing attention to the controversial U.S. drone strikes.

Khan has been a fierce critic of U.S. policy in Pakistan and the use of drone strikes, calling them a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and a strategy that fuels militant anger towards Washington.

“We will not cause any trouble if the government doesn’t want us to enter South Waziristan,” Khan told reporters. “We just want to direct the attention of the entire world to these illegal and immoral drone attacks in Waziristan that have left many innocent people dead.”

…..

The U.S.-based anti-war group Code Pink was part of the procession. Throughout the journey the pink-clad peace activists regularly chanted anti-drone slogans in Pakistan’s native language of Urdu.

“Stop them! Stop them! Stop the drone attacks,” the protesters shouted in Urdu.

CNN goes on to explain authorities warned them they would not be able to enter the tribal region for security reasons and an official told them it was “not suitable for any gathering.” Apparently the official underestimated the determination of the participants including, of course, Medea Benjamin, Ann Wright and Code Pink.

Ann Wright: (video)

We met with .. the US embassy today and he warned us ‘This is a very dangerous place Pakistan’ and we said ‘Yes we know it is….we know it’s dangerous because of US policies and we’re going there because you won’t tell us about these programs’. We said …tell us about the drone program and he said I can’t, I can’t tell you it’s classified and we said that’s why we’re here because the US government won’t tell us anything about the program so we’ll go there, we’ll see it and we’ll tell you about it…….If it takes Americans going to south Waziristan to say ‘no drones’ then we are prepared to go other places in Waziristan and sit there until the drone strikes stop.

Medea Benjamin has been out in front organizing and condemning the use of drone warfare. Her book Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control is an informative entertaining must read (excerpted here).

Robert Naiman of Just Foreign Policy and CODEPINK Peace Delegation meet with the Acting US Ambassador to Pakistan, Richard Haogland, in Islamabad on October 3, 2012 to discuss the United States policy on the use of drones strikes in Pakistan. from CODEPINK on Vimeo.

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just intercepted this excellent link http://paminprogress.tumblr.com/post/33163205906/convoy-to-waziristan

from one of our contributors pam baily who participated in the march:

There were times of tension and unease, however. The massive turnout quickly overwhelmed the PTI’s ability to organize, and our two vans became separated from Kahn and his security detail, leaving us alone in a conservative land that normally never sees foreigners – particularly women. We were instructed to keep our curtains closed in several locations when the flags of fundamentalist groups appeared, and to cover our heads in deference to the culture the rest of the time. Rest stops were allowed only once. None of us minded, although one of our two buses was not air-conditioned and the heat soon became stifling. Riding right along with us the entire way was Richard Leiby, the Washington Post’s reporter in Pakistan. (He laughingly called the experience “a Republican’s idea of hell.”) That kind of attention alone was worth the trip; it is so hard getting the Post’s attention back in DC…

wow, this is great. much better than my article with many photos.

As darkness fell, we finally made it to the compound of one of the local tribes in the vicinity of Tank – a large farm where we were engulfed by hundreds of men for whom we were quite a novelty. The welcome, and chaos, were almost overwhelming. (The women, of course, were nowhere to be seen, although they were clearly doing the cooking.) Anxiety crept in when one of Stafford-Smith’s assistants visited our room to tell us that specific threats were now reaching the Reprieve team that there were “elements” planning to send a camel strapped with explosives into the throng the next day – perhaps targeting us as Americans specifically. With the knowledge that hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis would be converging on the area, and that the military was still vowing to shut the road to prevent anyone from going further, the decision was reluctantly made along with our sponsors to speak at a “pre-rally” that morning, but to do what we could to de-fuse the risk for everyone by keeping our presence as Americans low-profile during the height of the frenzy. We would return to Islamabad after the pre-rally. (It felt very real at the time. But we still don’t know if the threat was authentic or made up by the Pakistani government, or even U.S. influences, to discourage us or the PTI.)

Despite this minor set-back, the rally at the farm the next morning did a lot to make up for our disappointment at not making it across the border into Waziristan, so tantalizingly close, and the many people we knew were waiting for us. The compound flooded with people from across the region, and just prior to making our way to the stage, Imran Khan visited us to say a personal thank you. A politician he definitely is (and all that entails, negative as well as positive), but he is for sure a charismatic man! When he talks – in a large setting or small – he has the unique ability of a natural orator to make you feel as if he is directing his comments right at you, with 100% sincerity.

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