Hotline Asia Urgent Appeals -- UA020806(8)

Action Requested || Sample Letter || Background
Please respond before 20 August 2002
Update

Summary

Villages in Khanewal District (Southern Punjab, Pakistan) had been living under a police siege for many days with their supply of water and telephone connections cut off by the farm administration. On 9 June 2002, a massive police contingent of over 1,000 suddenly arrived at village no. 81/82 in Pirowal, Khanewal. They carried out a massive operation during which they continuously fired their weapons for over 3 hours. At the end of the operation, one tenant farmer had been killed and four other persons seriously wounded. On 11 June 2002, tenant farmers on Multan's military farm were attacked; five were shot and remained in critical condition for many days. On the same day, tenant farmers in Kala Shah Kaku (near Lahore) were attacked, and forced to give up their wheat harvest shares, while being forced to mark their thumbprints on contracts against their will.

After injuring these people, the police filed allegedly false criminal cases against the people of these villages, particularly the tenant activists. Many are in jail on false charges. The authorities remain committed to repressive measures that are pushing 20,000 people in Pirowal, Khanewal towards starvation and forcing the remaining hundreds of thousands to endure constant harassment and often direct physical brutality. In such manner, the tenant farmer are being deprived of their livelihood and land which they have been cultivating for 100 years.

To prevent further violent clashes between the tenant farmers and the police, and to ensure a peaceful and just solution to the question of the tenants' land rights, please write polite letters to express your concern about the case. Request the authorities to:

1. Stop police harassment in the villages of Khanewal and Okara Districts and urge the administration, particularly the Punjab Seed Corporation, to hold talks with the farmers instead of using threats and coercive power;

2. Urge the government of Punjab to form an independent Inquiry Commission consisting of High Court Judges to ascertain factors in the situation and make recommendation for an amicable solution to the problems; and

3. Ensure that no lands - a source of subsistence for nearly a hundred years - are taken away from the tenant famers.

Sample Letter

Background

Agricultural workers of farms in villages 75, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87/10-R in Pirowal, Khanewal had been cultivating the lands since 1900, when the place was all desert or bore wild forests throughout, with no canals to irrigate this part of land. Later, these lands were cultivated by the ancestors of the present tenant farmers who worked the land, hired by the leasees.

In 1919, the British Government gave out the said lands on a 40-year lease. Later, under a martial law regulation of 1958/59 and then of 1977, 4,516 acres and 2,214 acres of land respectively were allotted to the agriculture workers working on those lands. Thereafter in 1963, the lands were once again given out to the agriculture workers by the Board of Revenue, Lahore and was registered with the Revenue Department. However, these decisions were practically not carried out.

Instead, in the 1970s, the government of Punjab leased the land to some government departments, wanting them to further rent them to the farmers who were not free to do anything of their own consent. In 1976, the Government of Punjab gave out a total 6,630 acres of land to and under the supervision of the Punjab Seed Corporation (PSC). In other words, the government has given them a free hand in decisions regarding the land's administration.

Injustice in Administration:

While the land is owned by the provincial government, the farms are actually operated by different government agencies including the military, the livestock department, and the PSC, which have no legal claim to the land. Over the years, although the PSC and its officials have prospered, the socio-economic condition of the cultivators have not been improved. Under their administration, the tenant farmers have reportedly been oppressed by these agencies. For example, they were given poor quality pesticides, and more amount of pesticides were recorded than what is actually given out by the agencies. Also, the agencies have been claiming harvest shares from these tenant farmers for decades, and recently asking for much larger shares, despite not being legal owners of the land. At the time the crops are picked, the expenses which were already made by the PSC are accounted for by the agriculture workers. In the end, farmers are often left empty-handed for tiling the lands for their subsistence.

Recently, the operating agencies have attempted to ignore the fact that tenants have been tilling the land for decades: they forcibly tried to change the tenure arrangement to a contract system, offering contracts of 3 to 5 years. When these contracts expire, the tenants can be evicted from the land, an eventuality that is prohibited under tenancy acts.

Such were also the result of the failure of successive governments to address this issue with any degree of seriousness. Therefore, despite having land rights accorded to them under various tenancy acts in the country (see above) these agriculture workers have never enjoyed them. Instead they have to be subjected to the adminisration's mismanagement, abuses, threats of eventual eviction, thus risk losing their lands for their subsistence.

The Struggle for Land Rights:

At present, there are roughly one million tenant farmers who work on farms owned by the government of Punjab in more than 10 districts across the province. Although these tenants and their ancestors have been cultivating the same land for almost 100 years, they still have no land titles.

In 1999, the Pakistan government announced the lands should be allotted to landless tenants. This was the promise of General Musharraf during his referendum campaign - to allot 70,000 acres of state land in Punjab to landless tenants. (The one million tenants work on 68,000 acres of the land in the province.) However, since the Anjuman Mazarain Punjab (Tenants Association of Punjab or TAP), an organization of landless tenants on state land in Punjab province working for legal ownership rights, took up its work in 2000, violence against them has progressively intensified with the brutal repression of government agencies in collaboration with military forces.

There have been various conflicts between the tenant farmers and the PSC due to the abovementioned conditions. However, it was the attempt to alter the tenure arrangement on the military farms in Okara district that sparked the tenant uprising. The TAP strongly resisted the move towards contract arrangements. They demanded permanent ownership rights, a slogan that General Musharraf, the present military President of Pakistan, has repeatedly used since coming to power in October 1999.

As the movement spread, so did the panic within the status quo. The movement for ownership rights has intensified over the past few months. Since January 2002, there have been several shooting incidents in Okara and Khanewal districts, with tenants working on farms operated by the military and by the PSC being subjected to arrests, intimidation, outright physical violence and threatened of land eviction in the course of massive police operations. In January 2002, a tenant was shot and killed in Renala Khurd, Okara by the Director of Renala State military farms. In April, the tenants decided to hold back the traditional wheat harvest share that is surrendered to operating agencies. In the middle of May, two more tenants were shot and killed in the villages of Okara and Khanewal. Recently, massive police shootings also took place in June at Pirowal, Kala Shah Kaku and Multan.

Recent Situation:

At a meeting organized by different NGOs on June 25, the tenant farmers said that the police still surrounded the villages and restricted their activities. They could not protest against any oppression in any way as they were afraid the police may arrest them.

Presently the water channels which were blocked earlier have been reinstated. However the tube-wells connections necessary for water supply which had been cut down, are still disconnected. Many restrictions on basic needs have been lifted and some organizations are trying to bring tenants and the administration together to negotiate.

Although tension seem to have reduced, it was reported that the earlier police action had resulted from some senior officials taking the demands of the tenants as a personal offense, therefore, there is a serious danger of further clashes or a severe crackdown of the tenants. Without easing tension on the situation, it will be difficult for the government and the tenants to negotiate on how to grant the ownership rights due to them.

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Thank you for Your Continued Support!!