Greater
provincial autonomy demanded
Sana calls for making Sindhi national language, reorganisation of military
The News Inrenational
By Adeel Pathan
HYDERABAD: The Sindhi Association of North America (Sana) in its 23rd annual
convention held in Orlando (US) from June 29 to July 1 expressed concern over
the May 12 Karachi carnage and adopted various resolutions for the restoration
of democracy, rule of law and independence of judiciary, besides the rights for
Sindh.
According to a copy of resolutions emailed to The News on Monday, the convention
was of the view that the “unrepresentative” governments of Pakistan and Sindh
must resign immediately and an impartial caretaker government should hold free
and fair elections under the supervision of an independent election commission.
It demanded that the country should be purged of illegal arms and ammunition.
The government should ask for surrender of illegal arms and ammunition within 30
days without fear of prosecution. After that, the government should initiate a
programme to search all illegal arms and ammunition and prosecute their owners.
Sana said the government should ban all parties and other groups that are either
involved in terrorist acts of killing innocent people in Karachi and other parts
of Pakistan or have so-called "military" wings. “We also demand from the
governments of United States and other countries that such organisations be
declared terrorist organisations.”
Through another resolution, the Sindh organisation demanded that the federal
government and their “surrogates” be stopped from “terrorising” the people of
Sindh and the truly elected representatives of the province be given their right
to run the affairs of the province.
In a resolution, the convention demanded implementation of language laws in
Sindh, the provisions of the language law duly passed by the Sindh Assembly made
effective and the teaching of Sindhi in all schools of Karachi, Hyderabad and
other parts of the province be made compulsory. It also called for the
allocation of immediate funding for the teaching of Sindhi and promoting its use
in judiciary and administrative matters. It demanded that Sindhi be made
national language of Pakistan, besides Punjabi, Saraiki, Pashto and Balochi.
“This gathering of North American Sindhis therefore passes this resolution that
all laws in the current Constitution be changed to adhere to the basic and
fundamental premise stated in 1940 (Lahore) resolution. We further demand that
except for the subjects of defence, currency, and foreign Relations, all other
areas be made provincial subjects.”
The convention also demanded that Pakistan's military be reorganised as “a
nationally oriented, ethnically balanced and morally disciplined force” that
pledged to uphold civilian democratic rule.
It called for reducing poverty, improving health and education facilities and
creating employment in rural Sindh through development programmes. It also
demanded registration of all bona-fide voters in Sindh.