TANK - Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s two-day march against drone strikes in tribal areas Sunday ended peacefully, but was kept from entering South Waziristan.
Changing his programme about half an hour before reaching Kotkai, South Waziristan, PTI chief Imran Khan advised his marchers, foreign media persons and anti-drone activists, who had managed to enter Orakzai village of South Waziristan, to return to Jahaz Ground, Tank, so that he could deliver his speech to the marchers.
Addressing the rally in Tank district, Imran said the security forces had indirectly barred his peace caravan from reaching Kotkai - the scheduled culmination point of the rally in South Waziristan - while the administration used delaying tactics by parking containers on its route to the venue.
“We have achieved our objectives to convey our message to the world community that US drones kill innocent people and cause collateral destruction,” he said.
Imran said he had earlier announced that he will not opt for any clash with the authorities if the security forces stopped the march. “We have done whatever the government and the rulers could not do,” he said.
The PTI chief warned President Zardari that if he did not mend his ways, PTI activists would march on Islamabad. “Beware of PTI tsunami, any time it can head towards Islamabad,” he said.
About US drones, Imran said the more it would resort to drone hits in Waziristan, the more hatred it would face.
Imran contended that drone attacks were a sheer violation of international laws and human rights. Criticising government’s dubious policy on drone hits, he blamed the rulers for giving green signal to the US drone attacks.
He also blamed President Zardari for allowing drone strikes and added he never came up with names of those killed in these acts of aggression. “Are those killed in these attacks not human beings. Don’t they have any identity or name,” he asked.
On this occasion, Imran claimed PTI would sweep the next general elections and resolve all issues being confronted by the people of tribal areas after coming to power. He also promised to do away with FCR.
He promised to ensure provision of education, health facilities to people and provide jobs to them to lift their living standard.
Imran said his party, the day it would come to power, which according to him was not far away, would initiate a new era of development in ever-neglected tribal areas of the country, besides equipping the youth of the county with contemporary education.
PTI chief said his party was a national party and would unite the entire Pakistan, as its supporters had come to the march from all over the country.
“PTI has emerged as a national party of the country. With the active participation of people from all the four provinces of Pakistan, we will strive for establishing a new Pakistan,” Khan remarked.
Imran noted that Maulana Fazlur Rehman had tried to stop them from marching to Waziristan by adopting various tactics. He said in presence of Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif there was no need of any conspiracy by Christians and Jews and they were worst than these non-Muslims.
“I request you to let others serve people as you are unable to do so,” he requested the Maulana.
He paid rich tributes to Clive Smith of the Reprieve, an NGO working for the rights of prisoners and also the delegation from the US that mostly comprised elderly men and women.
Imran particularly mentioned that Smith had rendered valuable services in securing release of various prisoners from Guantanamo Bay.
He claimed PTI workers were not afraid of anyone and they had proved it again by staging this historic march for peace in Waziristan and an end to drone hits inside the tribal areas.
He also commended specifically the courage of foreign peace activists, PTI women and youth wings, Hindu community of the area and PTI activists in general, who from across the country participated in the march to troubled Waziristan despite high security risks.

Agencies add: Earlier, the security forces and authorities stopped a large number of marchers from entering the restive South Waziristan tribal region near Manjhikhel checkpost on Tank Road over security concerns. Army officials after consultations with the organisers convinced them to drop the plan in view of uncertain security situation in the area.
Authorities had blocked their path with shipping containers on the highway. The participants removed the containers on their own as the convoy proceeded ahead towards its destination. After several delays the Army told protesters it was unsafe to be on the road after dark and they turned back.
The administration had also stopped the convoy near the Mehram Sultan area but later allowed the convoy to march ahead.
The administration had taken stringent security measures and imposed curfew deploying a large number of policemen and Frontier Corps (FC) personnel in the area.
The government had decided to provide security to the march until its stay in Tank. The administration has already placed containers there to block the marchers from proceeding ahead on the pretext of inability to provide security any further.
But PTI Chief Imran Khan was adamant that the march would reach its destination at Kotkai, South Waziristan.
The political administration of South Waziristan banned all political activity in the agency whereas the PTI chief had also said that confrontation would be avoided.
The PTI chairman earlier on Sunday urged activists to remain peaceful and to eschew confrontation with the authorities.
“The drones are inhumane,” Khan said, donning a white turban as he stood on a vehicle in Tank, surrounded by thousands of protesters.
“Are these people not humans? These humans have names. Drone attacks are a violation of human rights,” he said.
A large number of local and international media persons were accompanying the convoy. Musician and PTI member Salman Ahmed was also present in the convoy.
President of the PTI youth wing, philanthropist and pop singer Abrar-ul-Haq was also present at the occasion and while talking to the media, said that the people of Waziristan had suffered a lot at the hands of the drone attacks and that his party was showing solidarity with the victims.
An American rights activist told the marchers that she had travelled from the United States to apologise for the deaths and sufferings of the people in tribal regions.
The Peace March started from Islamabad on Saturday with hundreds of vehicles and after a night stay in Dera Ismail Khan started their journey towards South Waziristan Sunday morning. But the security forces stopped them at a checkpost from entering Waziristan.
The army officials told the organisers that the march would not be allowed in view of threats to the participants. They convinced the marchers to drop the plan and to return to Tank city in settled area.
A Taliban group Saturday had threatened bomb attacks on the participants of the march saying that ‘Jews and Christian’ from the United States were participating in the march.
Medea Benjamin, leader of a delegation from the US peace group CodePink, apologised for the drone attacks, saying: “We are so grateful that you understand there are Americans in solidarity with you and against our government policy.”
However, the US peace campaigners left the convoy before it reached Tank with their spokeswoman saying they felt they had achieved their goals.
There were some 15,000 people in the streets of Tank to greet Khan.
Clive Stafford Smith, the British head of the legal lobby group Reprieve, said that whether or not the group reached its intended destination was irrelevant.
“It’s already a wonderful success,” he told reporters. “It doesn’t matter what happens from here on. We’ve generated a huge amount of publicity not just in Pakistan but across the world.”
Khan, who has regularly condemned the US-led ‘war on terror’, says he wants to show the world the damage inflicted on innocent people by the drone campaign.
“We have to put pressure on the United States government,” said Billy Kelly, a 69-year-old Vietnam veteran from New York.
“The government is making pro forma protests but Imran has shown the world he will do something,” said Shamsad Ahmed Khan, a former foreign secretary.
He noted the government declared a national day of protests over a blasphemous film last month, but it had never called for such a protest over the drone strikes.
The Taliban denounced the march as political theatre ahead of next year’s elections and condemned Khan and his party as “secular and liberal”.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which tracks drone strikes, said between 1,232-1,366 people had been killed since the strikes began in 2004. Between 474-884 were believed to be civilians, it said.
A recent report, Living Under Drones, said that large swathes of tribal areas were terrorised by the drones.
Civilians were scared to go to school or work in case they were targeted, the report by Stanford and New York Universities said.
Getting accurate data on casualties and the effects of drones is extremely difficult since the government allows few foreigners into the tribal areas and the Taliban often seal off the sites of strikes. Drones also often attack people arriving at the site of the strike.
The march highlighted the way that drones complicate the government’s already uneasy relationship with the United States. Americans often justify the strikes by saying Pakistan is unable or unwilling to crush the insurgency.

Short of SWA, PTI ‘exceeds its goal’