By Awais Qarni
[Ed: Over eleven hundred have lost their lives in the floods in Pakistan, a million have seen their homes destroyed, and tens of millions more have been affected. There is now the possibility of mass food shortages. In an emergency statement, the socialist Struggle organisation in Pakistan has called for urgent measures to help all of those affected and mass protests to ensure such steps are taken]
The catastrophic floods in most parts of Pakistan have once again laid bare the poor state of the country’s infrastructure. As in many other poor countries, the wretched and crisis-ridden Pakistani capitalism is incapable of dealing with the catastrophes of climate change caused by the system.
More than 30 million people have been affected by the recent floods and thousands have died already. Tens of thousands have been rendered homeless and helpless under the open sky. It is feared that the worst is yet to come, in the form of more rains, floods, epidemics in the affected areas, food inflation and worsening of already terrible economic conditions.
There is virtually no relief coming from the government, mired in the deepest economic crisis, under the heel of IMF. The flood victims need our immediate support and help. Provision of safe and dry locations, foods, clean water, tents and medicines can save countless lives.
Besides these measures, a countrywide protest campaign of workers and students is needed to force the government to start a wide-ranging relief and rehabilitation program. Hence, it is the need of the hour to establish countrywide ‘Revolutionary Flood Relief and Protest Committees’.
Ruling class only believe in exploitation
These committees, besides relief and protest campaigns, would organize awareness campaigns in the masses regarding the vulnerability of the present situation. We maintain that the ruling classes, including capitalists, landlords and imperialist NGOs, along with their institutions of class rule and status quo only believe in exploitation and the plunder of public resources.
We can’t place our class brethren and sisters in flood-affected areas at their mercy. Only the exploited and the oppressed can understand the pain of the other exploited and oppressed. We therefore appeal to you to become a part of “Revolutionary Flood Relief and Protest Campaign” and provide financial, political and social support to the flood victims.
We invite all progressive political and social organizations nationally and internationally, including trade unions, student organizations and human rights organizations to join the campaign.
Immediate Demands
1. All government resources must be used on a war footing to rescue the people trapped in floods.
2. Provision of immediate food and medical relief to flood victims.
3. Government buildings and other luxurious palaces of the ruling classes must be used to shelter and rehabilitate the homeless flood victims.
4. All flood affected areas must be declared calamity-hit and all their utility bills, taxes and other obligations must be written-off for at least one year.
5. All fees and other dues of the students belonging to the flood affected areas must immediately be written-off.
6. An amount of at least 0.5mn PKR must be granted to each affected family.
7. The government must rebuild all the houses washed away in the floods.
