Sindhis cannot remain silent when their five thousand years old homeland is subjected to threats of dismemberment, and hateful attempts are kept on at converting them into a minority within their home-land.

Assessing the current political situation and in face of arrogant disinformation launched by the Karachi Press, some fifty prominent Sindhi intellectuals have jointly issued a press statement against the on going fascistic politics challenging the integrity of their land and their very survival as a people. The statement has been published on 4th July, 1995 in most of the leading Sindhi, Urdu and English papers in Pakistan.

We felt that conscious and responsible democratic opinion be personally informed of the situation and misconceptions on Sindh be somewhat diffused. We are accordingly mailing you the original text of the statement, with a request kindly to peruse it closely. For more information about the problems of Sidhis and hostile actions and policies for long aimed at depriving them of their political, economic, cultural and human rights, we would welcome your kind and fraternal response. Thanks. PRESS STATEMENT by Friends Of Sindh.

The undersigned Sindhi intellectuals, writers, teachers, human rights activists, and social workers strongly condemn the MQM's demand for dividing Sindh, the five thousand years old homeland of the Sindhi people. They strongly condemn the regime of human slaughter that has been imposed by MQM in Sindh for such a long time with complete impunity. They also remained all the people of a fundamental misconception, namely that the parties affected by this onslaught and terrorism are only the terrorists on the one hand and the Government of Sindh and the Federal Government on the other. The real party being affected by this continued terrorism in fact are the people of Sindh. Any bartering away of the fundamental political, economic and other rights, privileges and positions of the people of Sindh by any one will be regarded by them as collusive and without authority and jurisdiction.

Unscrupulous politics and yellow journalism use the euphemism of "talks with MQM" as code word for its demand that homeland of the people of Sindh, its resources, the rights and liberties of its inhabitants, which they have refused to surrender without a fight to finish to the mighty Greeks, the Huns, the Arabs, Afghans, Mughals, Arghuns, Tarkhans and the British, be surrendered to the terrorists.

(Sindh is basically the homeland and proud possession of the people of Sindh, of their past and coming generations, from the beginning till the end of time). Sindhi people have not len their province for becoming a unit of the Federation of Pakistan for the purpose of being subjugated by any new Changez Khans, new Hitlers and Mussolinis.

(No Government or political party has or can ever have any right or mandate to give away even a single inch of the territory of Sindh, and tamper with the historical right of the people of Sindh to continue to remain the masters of their homeland, of its resources, its autonomy, and to manage their own affairs without being dominated by any one else either through demographic aggression or through any other form of induced subjugation).

As the whole world knows (We the people of Sindh are inheritors of one of the most ancient great civilization of the world, the Moen-jo-Daro Civilization). Our homeland Sindh is a well known and time-honoured name in the history not only of the sub-continent, but also of the world. We attained state-hood many centuries before some of the foremost states of the modern world.

(Our people played a prominent role in the formation of Pakistan. Had Sindhi people not consented to join the proposed state of Pakistan, there would have been no Pakistan. It was a Sindhi Quiad-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who founded Pakistan, and it was the province of Sindh which first passed the Pakistan Resolution in its Provincial Assembly).

We Sindhi people struggled for and helped achieve Pakistan, because, we were promised a better, more prosperous, more humane quality of lie, political sovereignty, demographic stability and inviolability of boundaries. What has happened, however, is that from the first day of Pakistan, has begun the stage-by-stage implementation of a long term plan to dispossess and disinherit us of our land, and villages, towns and cities, our sources of livelihood, our water, our civil liberties, our democratic, political, national and human rights, the sanctity f our homes, our lives, our honour, our right internally to rule our own homeland and or very national existence.

Terrorist circles are claiming today that they are the creators of Pakistan, as a great number of people of India were killed in the communal riots that followed the decision in favour of the creation of Pakistan. Most deplorable as communal killings were, Pakistan was created, and survived, not because of this mutual barbaric slaughter but inspite of it. Communal rioting followed when the final decision for creation of Pakistan had already been announced by the British Government. Communal rioting and its consequences were a heavy burden and an unmitigated calamity for the newly created Pakistan, struggling for its very existence, rather than a cause of its creation or any source of its strength.

Quaid-e-Azam was never a communalist. He never advocated theocracy. He was a Muslim liberal democrat. Before taking up the cause of separate Muslim State, he devoted a great part of his adult life to the cause of a liberal, democratic, united India in which people of all Indian communities including Hindus and Muslims, could live in amity, equality, safety, honour and peace, without any fear of domination by them majority community. He never turned his back on the ideals of a modern liberal, democratic state. He never envisaged that Hindus and Muslims and the States of India and Pakistan should for ever remain locked in mortal combat. He never intended that all Hindus should go and live in India and all Muslims should go and live in Pakistan. He told the Muslims within the boundaries of Bharat to be ocimfully loyal to India and exhorted the Muslims of Pakistan to bury the past, forget communal rivalries and hatred and begin a new life and citizens of Paistan in which, politically speaking, all would be equal citizens, with no communal majoriteies or minorities whatsoever.

Nothing could be clearer on this point than Quaid-e-Azam's famous historic inaugural speech to the first Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, three days before the coming into existence of Pakistan, in which he directed to people of Pakistan to forget, any change, the bitter past, bury the communal batchet and treat all Paksitanis as equal citizens of Pakistan, so that the entire story of Hindus Muslim strife and communal hatred may become a thing of the past.

But Quaid-e-Azam was dying from TB. His second in command, Liaquat Ali Khan, along with his Indian immigrant elite came from abackground of dreams of Urduhegemonism. He insisted upon the exclusive dominance of Urdu even in the language-conscious East Bengal, prevented the timely framing of the constitutions and holding of general elections. These actions led to a series of Martial laws, and ultimately the debacle and separation of East Pakistan. He wanted to "conqur=er" Pakistan with the help of immigrant population and establish belatedly another kingdom of Oudh, and later a U.P - C.P. Bihar 'empire' with its base in Sindh and with its tentacles spreading over the rest of Pakistan and later in the whole of Middle East. He arranged with Chaudhry Muhamad Ali, Ghulam Muhammad and other bureaucrats for virtual U.P. -C.P - Bashir human inundationof Sindh, a demographic aggression, against Sindh to subjugage and enslave Sindhi people.

A conversation between Altaf Gauhar, the then InformationSecretary of Ayub Khan, on 15th March 1969, and Chaudhry Muhammad Ali, the Prime Minister, on the subject of grievances of the Sindhi people is mot revealing. Altaf Gauhar in the conversation , as quoted by him , said, "The Sindhis were extremely unhappy about the growing presence of 'outsider' in the towns of Sindh. The Muhajirs had taken over the whole of Karachi, the Punjab officials had acquired large tracts of barrage lands and the Pathans had acquired a monopoloy of all transport and construction business. Muhammad ali Thought these wories were all unnecessary, because his government in the 1950s had foreseen the problem and had planned the inductionof Muhajirs into Karachi and other major towns of Sindh to forestal Sindhi nationalism" (See pages 466-467 of "Ayub Khan" by Altaf Gauhar).

In pursuance of this sinister conspiracy (Sindh has been treated from the very first day of Pakistan as an owner-less abandoned piece of waste-land open to anyone who may like to come and grab it. As if there were no existing historical property rights over the territory of Sindh. As if countless generations of ours bad not laid down their lives to protect their right over each and every inch of this territory. As if our forefathers had not fought against the Greeks, the Arghuns, The Tarkhans, the Mughals, the Brithish. As if we the people of Sindh were merely sojourners on this territory of ours having permanent and exclusive rights over this territory. And as if any body who mught like to do so, could have the right to grab this land, its villages, towns and cities at his pleasure, if only onece he could muster a sufficeintly large number of illegal encroachers with license to reduce the Sindhi people into a petty minority.

Arbitrarily using the State legislative and Administrative machinery, lands and towns and cities of Sindhi People were snatced from them through black confiscatory evacuee laws. In factsm the era of Pakistan for Sindhis began with the usurption of their most valuable national property viz. the city and port of Karachi.

The immigrant elite, misusing their supremancy over the State and political machinery, banned Sindhi language in Karachi University, usurped the lands and urban property of Sindhis under the grab of rehabilitating refugees, closed Sindhi medium schools in Karachi, deprived Sindhis form the services, opposed the reintroduction of Sindhi Language as the medium of higer education in 1972 and facilitated the illegal migration of Indian Muslims in Sindh. They have been mastermineding the riots against Sindhi minorites to capture urban centers including Karachi, Hyderabad and Mirpurkhas. Using pretext of Hindu Muslim conflicts in India like that of Babri Mosque, they have been killing peope belonging to mionorities and burning their places of worship.

After the 1983 democratic movement against Zia-ul-Haque's dictatorship, the Zial-ul-Haque regime decided upon punsihing the democratic people of Pakistan for spearheading 1983 Democratic Movement f ro Restoraton of Democracy struggle in Sindh, and even so the fascist-terrorist Organization MQM was formed and armed as a para -military organization by the regime.

The terrorists of MQM have been used for committing blood-curdling crimes, torturing people in speical torture cells, terrorizing the population, sowing the seeds of sectariansim and claiming to be a super power. They have hijacked the English and Urdu press of Karachi and made it their most obedient and unscrupulous too. For Karachi Press a murderer is an "urban" warrior adn killer a "youngster". Every word falling from the mouth of the terrorists has to be published as gospel.

Their bloo-bath is continuing. they have destroyed property worth billions of Rupees and they have destroyed the Industry and economy of Sindh. People are starving. But the terrorist are being supported, any lionized, by many unscrupulous politicians, who are calling upon the governemnt for talks with them. Every one knows that these talks with terrorists are going on for the last ten years and every day they are increasing and changing their demands, What they actually demand is no less than handing over of Sindh of them. This is not the end. It is absolutely certain that tomorrow they will raise the same hue and cry which today they are raising agaisnt Sindhis, and will call upon the international community to give them a separate State to save them form the alleged oppression of Pakistan State.

Contrary to the Goebbelean propaganda of the terrorists mafia that the Indian immigrant communities living in Sindh are deprived of rights or privileges, they are rather over privileged in the Sindh province, in comparison with the indigenous Sindis in the matters of availability of health and cducational facilities, clean drinking water, per capita income, availability of roads, electricity, telephone, drainage and other civic amenities and above all in gerrymandered electroal constituencies in the tow main cities of Sindh. Many more immigrants are employed in federal and provincial services than their population percentage. And in private industries, business organizations and multinational corporations, they constitute more than eighty percent of the employees and hardly five percent indigenous Sindhis are employed in these organizations.

Sindhis form time to time have been trying to present their deprivations and victimizations buth the Karahci based Urdu and English press and pro-immigrant journalists associated with the rest of the Press throughout Pakistan and also working with BBC, VOA, Radio Germany, Radio Australia, Agency France Press and constantly presenting a totally false pictyure of the situation. Not only the work anything about the true sate of affairs in Sidh. The all-pervading influence of the terrorist propaganda machinery can be judged from the facts that even such instituions as Human Rigthts Commission of Pakistan which is expected to be free of all prejudice and bias have fallen prey to that machinery.

The sindhi people have been continuously observing the terrorist activities fo MQM in conjunction with its provoking and irresponsible political agitation. The federal government and Sindh Governemnt have form time to time tried to find measn for bringing it to the negotiation table, but its leadership has on one or the other pretext negated their effort and distroted their offers and has instead continued resorting to its violent methods of response with all the greater vengeance. Its leader is issuring statements to provoke the people of Sindh and hurt their national sentiments, such as conquering of Sindh by "Mohajirs" like Arabs invading it about thirteen hundred years ago.

We invite UNO, representatives of the western democracies partioularly USA, UK, France and Gernmany, Islamic countries, Amnosty International, Asia Watch, International media including BBC, VOA, and Gernmay, Rench and Austruian Radio and TV, and impartual Pakistan journalists to visit Karachi, Hyderabad nd ther areas of Sindhi and find facts on the ground. We also invite independent and fair minded leaders of political parties, MNAs, Senator, to visit Sindh and talk to the people of all walks of life regarding the current situation.

We call upon the provincial and federal governemnts to take pro,t measures for repatriating illegal alien immigrants to their countries of origin, fulfil their constitutional duty to take effective measures to root out violence and terrorism form the soil of sindh and give all necessary help to all citizens affected by terrorism and killings.

We sincerely believe and firmly hold that there are no insoluble and irreconcilable contradictions between the proper, fundamental and abiding interestes fo the people of Sindh including those speaking Sindhi or Urdue. Given a sense of realistic appriaisal of the ground facts, sanity, common sense and a long term view of the enlightended self-interest of various peace-loving sections of the inhabitants of Sindh, it should not at all be impossible to arrive at mutually advantageous solutions to all outstanding issues. We hereby pledge to work to htaht end with all our hearts and minds for the promotion of the common good of all inhabitansts of Sindh regardless of language, culture, religion and other considerations.

We strongly believe in policital justice, rule of law, democracy, human rights adn in peaceful political process of resolving political problems. But at the same time oppose vehementhly any suggestion, compromise or solution which may promote futher terrorism in Karachi and deprive Sindhis of their rightfull political, economic, cultural and human rights. We make it very clear that Sindihis will fight to a finish if any attempt is made to dismember Sindh or convert Sindhis into minority on their own homeland.

We appeal to the entire people of Sindh to stand up and unite to root out violence and terrorism and foil the nefarious desing of establishing a new province on the soil of Sindh by the terrorists.