Pakistan Left parties will organize demonstration at Charing Cross Mall Road in Lahore on 10th April at 4:00 p.m. This is solidarity with the demonstrations on the same day in US and other countries to condemn the ongoing war on terror. Below is the joint statement:

Pakistan Left parties statement on 10 years of “War On Terror”

As we near the tenth anniversary of the War on Terror, the poisonous effects of American imperialism are everywhere in evidence. Afghanistan and Iraq lie in tatters, their people the victims of the ongoing crimes of their occupiers. The War has been expanded into Pakistan, where US drone attacks have claimed the lives of hundreds of civilians–and the Pakistani Army, encouraged and funded by the US, has launched murderous counter-insurgency campaigns in the Northwest, displacing millions.

And now, the US has placed itself at the head of the counterrevolutionary offensive in the Middle East and North Africa, doing its utmost to roll back the heroic, popular revolt against the dictators on whom its power had so long depended.

In this context, the urgency of reviving a strong anti-imperialist movement cannot be overstated. we stand in full support of the efforts of our brothers and sisters in the US to rebuild the American antiwar movement. On April 10th, there will be solidarity demonstrations in six Pakistani cities, expressing our full backing for the United National Antiwar Committee’s national protests in New York and San Francisco.

Today, more than ever, amidst the unrelenting austerity imposed on working people around the world, these wars are clear evidence of the irrationality of the social system in which we live. The US State, even as it continues to squander hundreds of billions of dollars on these criminal wars, is lining up to launch unprecedented attacks on social spending. Not to be outdone, the current government in Pakistan has slashed its development budget and officially canceled all flood-related reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts, all the while finding room to increase its military spending by an unforgivable 25%.

Thus, let this day of solidarity state clearly that our struggle against these wars is but one part of a common fight against rapacious ruling elites. The mobilisation of thousands of Americans against the murderous policies of their own government is a welcome reminder to those who would tell us that we’re locked in a ‘war of civilizations’—as the right-wing does in the US, and as it does in Pakistan.

We hope that April 9th marks the birth of a revitalized antiwar movement, just as it must also mark the beginning of substantive cooperation between movements in Pakistan and the US. These are urgent times, after all, and they will require nothing less.