SAHMAT statement for a public assembly in Pakistan
(16 February 2008)

We, the undersigned, welcome the initiative of the World Social Forum, Pakistan, in organizing a Public Assembly at Karachi in order to mobilize people against the continued occupation of Palestine and Iraq. The cause cuts across all borders. Never since Vietnam has US-led aggression on such scale taken place against Asian peoples, as is now being undertaken, under the agency of Israel in Palestine, and the armies of the US and UK in Iraq and the NATO in Afghanistan.
It is extremely unfortunate that the Government of India have remained unconcerned with the presence of NATO forces so near India’s own frontiers and with the brutal US occupation of Iraq, branded as unlawful by our own Parliament. On Palestine, the traditional independent policy of Free India has been altered into one of an open, military collaboration with Israel, in which we not only help finance Israel by buying its military ware, but also put its spy-satellite into space. The people of India need to be urgently aroused to the danger of our country being used as a tool in the US strategy of world domination.
It is incumbent upon people all over the world to enhance their vigilance and cooperation in the common struggle against Imperialism. We hope that the initiative of holding the Public Assembly at Karachi would be widely supported, and as widely emulated in India and throughout the world.
Irfan Habib, Shireen Musvi, Amiya Bagchi, D.N.Jha, Biswamoy Pati, Nandita Rao, Suvira Jaiswal, Iqtidar Alam Khan, Shamshad, Prabhat Patnaik, Indira Chandrasekhar, Virendra Saini, C.P.Chandrasekhar, Madhu Prasad, Saeed Mirza, Utsa Patnaik, Sohail Hashmi, Arjun Dev, Ram Rahman, Madan Gopal Singh, Parthiv Shah, M.K.Raina, Amar Farooqui


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